Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

coloration of the humpbacks, the barnacles and lice on their prominent callosities.
Some of these corpses were females and it was saddening to see the foetuses,
perfect in distinctive whale form – to the distinctive flippers/flukes and the throat
grooves along the belly – as they lay on the deck in all the blood and oil. I also saw
my first sperm whales close-to and investigated the complicated head, with only
one nostril, the other evolved into the ‘case’ containing spermaceti, which we now
know plays a functional role in sound production and echolocation, and possibly
in diving physiology. I was able to follow the processing of the carcasses through
the factory. One got used to the smells, except when a long dead whale was
brought in, known as a dauhval which was bloated from decomposition and had
meat dripping off the bones and a vile smell as it was processed. However, even
grade [3] oil had some value! But my own elephant seal research didn’t leave any
time for studying whales.
The first modern whale research had been carried out by the biologists of
Discovery Investigations, starting in 1925, when Discovery House was built. The
first whale biologists to work there were Mackintosh (leader), followed by
Wheeler, Harrison Matthews and others. They began work on 5 February and by
the time the station closed down for that winter had already examined the
carcasses of 241 whales, a remarkable achievement. An outstanding study
published in Discovery Reports, by Mackintosh and Wheeler on ‘Southern blue
and Fin whales’ (1929) was many years ahead of its time and based on hundreds
of whales examined on the Grytviken plan. They set new standards in the study of
whales, examining some 1208 whales at Pesca as well as another 454 at Saldanha
Bay in South Africa. This publication comprising 283 large pages covers external
characters, baleen, food, blubber, external parasites, reproductive organs, breeding
and growth (sexual maturity, breeding season, sexual cycle, ages and growth) and
conclusions on the stock of whales and its composition. Their work helped to
provide the beginnings of a solid foundation for the regulation of whaling. In
1954 I was to start work under Dr Mackintosh at the UK National Institute of
Oceanography on some of their material and was staggered to see its quality, for
its time, given the difficulties that had to be overcome).
So, Grytviken was a most interesting place. It stood half a mile directly across
King Edward Cove from King Edward Point, where the British Government
Station was sited. To the north a track led up the Bore Valley to the Bore Dam
(freshwater supply) and over a col, past freshwater lakes to Maiviken in West
Cumberland Bay. Around to the south a coastal path led under low cliffs, bright
green in summer from a dense growth of Acaena (burnett), past a Hydroelectric
Power House on the slope, run by water from Gull Lake. Then on past the
graveyard where Sir Ernest Shackletion is buried, and so to Penguin River and the
extensive plain of Hestesletten (Norwegian for Horse Plain), named after some
horses, introduced by the whalers, that used to run wild there).
. On top of the cliffs commanding the entrance to the cove, just before Penguin
River was reached, stood a gun mounted in the First World War. Behind the gun
emplacement rose Brown Mountain (330m). A long curving shingle beach, backed
by tussock grass, led south-east from Penguin River to Discovery Point at the
mouth of Moraine Fjord. On fine days a superb view opened up behind
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