Can words freeze as soon as uttered, and thus become inaudible? Polar research does not confirm it, and even the layman may well suspect that there are serious scientific objections to such a notion, and to its corollary, which is that congealed words should become audible on thawing. Yet this idea, through the ages, has given rise to a series of literary anecdotes and allusions, all of them humorous or satirical in intention. It is interesting to speculate how the idea arose in the first place. Hyperbole, including deliberately facetious hyperbole, is always present in the popular imagination, which tends to seek vivid, graphic, and sometimes wildly improbable comparisons in order to make its point. The heat of hell, and the coldness of charity, are equally undemonstrable from the strictly scientific point of view, while the goodness of gold must be regarded as ethically unverifiable, however effective as alliteration. We must imagine that some early wit once said: “It's so cold in X that when you try to say something, your words freeze and fall to the ground.” As a matter of fact, something very similar was attributed by Plutarch to one Antiphanes. In a chapter of the Moralia entitled “How a man may become aware of his progress in virtue” we find this anecdote:

Antiphanes said humorously that in a certain city words congealed with the cold the moment they were spoken, and later, as they thawed out, people heard in the summer what they had said to one another in the winter; it was the same way, he asserted, with what was said by Plato to men still in their youth; not until long afterwards, if ever, did most of them come to perceive the meaning, when they had become old men.

Since January 1949 the Arctic Team of the Fisheries Laboratory, Lowestoft, has been carrying out fishery research from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food Research vessel Ernest Holt, an Arctic-type trawler specially built and fitted out so that hydrographic and biological observations can be made on the Arctic fishing grounds throughout the year. At the time of writing the naturalists in the Arctic Team consist of Michael Graham (Leader); G. C. Trout and R. J. H. Beverton (Population studies); J. Corlett and P. T. Marshall (Plankton); Arthur Lee and H. W. Hill (Hydrography); R. W. Blacker (Benthos). I wish to thank my colleagues for allowing me to draw freely on their work which is in preparation for publication, and for contributing the illustrations to this article.

It is just ten years since the Directorate of Colonial Surveys became responsible for the production and publication of maps of the Falkland Islands Dependencies; in this account it is proposed to give a description of the work completed and an outline of the future programme.

“Operation Tabarin”, inaugurated in 1943, marked the re-establishment of British occupation and scientific activity in the region and included in its policy a programme of continuous scientific investigation within the area between 20° and 80° W. This venture later became known as the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, or F.I.D.S. It is in co-operation with F.I.D.S., and more particularly with the surveyors who work at the Directorate for several months on their return from the Antarctic, that the compilation and plotting of a systematic series of medium scale maps has been possible. In 1951 an article was published in this journal giving a full description of the type of survey undertaken, the methods and the instruments used and a brief summary of the maps published and planned.

At first the need was for maps for planning and other non-scientific purposes, but since 1951 the emphasis has moved towards the larger scales which are required principally as a basis for scientific work as well as for general use within the Dependencies. Between 1948 and 1950 a series of maps covering most of the area north of 75° S. was published at 1:500,000, and this is still the most useful scale for gaining a general picture of the topography. In 1953 work began on a series of maps covering a similar area to be published at 1:200,000. During the last ten years maps have been compiled at scales ranging from 1:9 million to 1:15,000, many of which have been printed and issued for general purposes, while others have been produced to illustrate specialized reports on, for example, meteorology in the Dependencies. It is not, however, proposed to include a detailed summary of these maps here, the following description covers only those maps which are on sale to the public or which form part of a systematic series.

In an attempt to settle the dispute between the United Kingdom, Argentina and Chile over sovereignty in the Falkland Islands Dependencies, the United Kingdom made unilateral Applications to the International Court of Justice at The Hague on 4 May 1955. The Applications set out the British title, and asked the Court to declare that the Argentine and Chilean encroachments in British Antarctic territory were illegal and invalid under international law.

Both the Argentine and Chilean Governments refused to accept the jurisdiction of the Court.* The United Kingdom Government subsequently expressed its regret at these refusals, and placed on record the fact that it had now taken every step open to it to bring about a peaceful and amicable determination of this question of sovereignty in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Charter of the United Nations. On 18 March 1956 the International Court announced that since neither Argentina nor Chile was prepared to accept the Court's jurisdiction, both cases had been removed from its list.