The old Norwegian text known as Konungs skuggsjá (The King's Mirror), hereafter abbreviated KS, is I believe the most significant early European vernacular document for northern research. This opinion was explicitly stated by Nansen, (1911, 2: 242):

The battle of Petropavlovsk in August/September 1854 was a significant though little known victory for the Russians during the Crimean War. Petropavlovsk, i n Kamchatka, was attacked by a Franco-British naval force intending to destroy Russian ships within the harbour and to render the port unusable as a naval base. Allied plans were disrupted by the death ofthe commander in chief, the British Admiral Price, just before the action was joined. A bombardment on 31 August badly damaged the harbour defences and, if followed up, would probably have resulted in success. After a gap of three days, the allies mounted a landing in the rear of the town which was, after severefighting, repelled by the Russians. After this defeat, the squadron dispersed t o ports on the other side of the Pacific.

Biographical variables, clinical ratings and psychological tests were used to predict performance of the eleven subjects involved in the International Biomedical Expedition to the Antarctic. The results showed that of the biographical predictors, past polar experience and age were best for predicting low stress and high arousal. Of the clinical predictions those made by a psychologist who had access to both interviews and psychometric material, and had been to the Antarctic, were more accurate than those of two other psychologists who had access to only the psychometric material and had not been there. Of the psychological tests, the initial stress scores were found to be good predictors of later stress and arousal, the initial arousal scores to be good predictors of later stress and self adaptation ratings, and the preferred interpersonal distance scores to be good predictors of independent observer ratings and peer ratings of adaptability.

The personal papers of Admiral Dufek, former Antarctic Projects Officer of the United States Department of Defense, provide insights into the political negotiations (May 1958 to October 1959) that immediately preceded the international Antarctic Conference and prepared the way for the Antarctic Treaty of 1959. The papers, lodged with the University of Syracuse, disclose information hitherto unpublished on the first 26 preparatory meetings, with interesting sidelights recording the attitudes of the 12 governments taking part in the discussions, and showing the origins of the draft treaty from which the Antarctic Treaty evolved.

Born in Annascaul, Ireland in 1877, Thomas Crean enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1893 and was serving in New Zealand when Scott's British National Antarctic Expedition passed through en route for McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. As an AB in Discovery he gained experience which he later put to good use in two further British expeditions, Scott's British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition, in which he sledged to the polar plateau, and Shackleton's Imperial Tran-Antarctic (Endurance) Expedition, in which he was given charge of the dog teams, drifted on the pack ice of the Weddell Sea and took part in the epic open-boat journey to South Georgia.