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

them for later examination, but they must easily be the heaviest mammalian ovaries
on record! I later published an account of them in the scientific journal "Nature".
22 January was a very full day and particularly interesting. I found a pair of twin
foetuses and one whale which had just finished lactating - a landmark in the
breeding cycle. Now I had examined all except three pairs of the ovaries I had
collected and written up my notes for the day - whale log, specimen log, lab notes
and journal. I was sitting in the quiet of my cabin with a long pjolter (whisky) at my
elbow writing to my darling Maureen! Everyone else was watching a film. I was
feeling very well; it's a healthy sort of tiredness and satisfying. Harry Weeks, from
Portsmouth, one of the senior winchmen working the after-plan, told me one day
that I'd done more work on deck than any other scientist that had come down and he
has been coming down for seven years! Harry is a British AB (able seaman) and quite
a character - so much so that he had a Christmas card from the Chairman of the
Directors, Rupert Troughton. Harry had been very helpful - coming down to the lab
tell me when suitable whales were hauled up and so on. I'd had him in for drinks
occasionally and he asked me that day if he could bring along a bottle to my cabin to
return my hospitality. He planned to get together a whaling exhibition - with a view
to making money! - when he got back home and I had been helping him out a bit. He
is an expert on scrimshaw and promised to carve me an ivory whale out of a sperm
whale tooth.
Another beautiful day followed, clear horizon and deep blue sea with dozens of
lovely greeny-blue icebergs drifting majestically by. I hoped that the ciné film I was
making (with Leonard Holmes 9.5mm camera!) would be a success so that Maureen
could see what it was like down there. I spent the day between deck and the
laboratory; it was very invigorating on deck in the sun with the shade temperature
just below freezing point. It was ‘tot’ night again (50,000 barrels of oil)
By 25 January we had turned westwards and were still travelling that way,
catching plenty of whales so it now seemed quite likely that Balaena wouldn't be
going to the Ross Sea after all. In a way I was disappointed because I would have
liked to see that area, but it meant that we'd be home that much sooner. The day had
been pretty hectic again and I had just left the lab at 10 o'clock, after examining
ovaries. I spent most of the day on deck - until 5 o’clock and it was quite a
Christmassy scene, with large snowflakes falling softly, blanketing the noise and
bustle on deck. I had discovered a source of a new kind of cartilage for a plastic
surgeon who had asked for some; apparently whale cartilage was better than any
other (including human cartilage) for certain kinds of surgery. Well it is, and small
amounts had been collected before on the whaling ships - but I had found a part of
the whale's skull which yields a uniform piece about ten feet long by one foot in
diameter! We took out a section that day and cut it up into small slabs - which I
understood might keep all the plastic surgeons in Britain happy for five years! It was
stored in a mild antiseptic cetavlon until it was to be used. What I collected that day
might be a hundred times the current stocks in England! The whale is a fabulous
beast!
Another ‘tot’ night came up - marking 60,000 barrels I thought. The pay bonus
depended on this and probably (as it didn’t affect me) I was the only man on the ship
who didn't know for sure! It had been a lovely crisp sunny day but I had to spend the
morning in the lab catching up on specimen preparation and in the afternoon there
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