SCOTT'S SHIP DISCOVERY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18388, 2 May 1923, Page 11

SCOTT'S SHIP DISCOVERY

SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION.

THE STUDY OF WHALES.

VOYAGE TO FALKLAND'S.;

[FROM our own correspondent.] LONDON, March 17.

In 1905J when the ship Discovery had accomplished her Antarctic -work, she was sold to the Hudson's Bay Company, and during the past seventeen years.*- the general public have heard nothing of her. Each year, however, the vessel has made an extended tour, sailing from this country in May, delivering stores to the company's | ports in Hudson's Bay, and bringing furs back to England in October or November each year- During the winter seasons she was laid .up in a home port. '•'- ', -' ( The sale of Captain Scott's old vessel to the Crown Agent for the. Colonies has revived interest in her. The study of the habits of whales in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands has long been recognised as an urgent necessity, and now the Colonial Office, in co-operation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, and certain scientific societies, is about to arrange for an expedition to this whaling field. Whaling by modern methods has been carried on from the islands since 1904, and has become more profitable than all other fields in the rest of the world. But much information . regarding the habits of the various species of whales is still •to be gathered to make the industry consistent with the highest degree of commercial efficiency. It is with the object of ; obtaining this information that the . expedition is to be sent to the southern' seas. ' ; Indiscriminate slaughter without any knowledge with regard to the breeding and other habits of the whales, it is recognised, will soon lead to their extermination. Some notion of the progress made in •the killing '; out of the whales may be gathered. from , the fact that whalebone, now worth about £1500 a ton, a hundred years ago, fetched only £25 a ton. .: The Discovery, which is still in an excellent state of preservation so far as her seagoing qualities are concerned, is to be refitted for the purposes ■of the expedition, . and it is unlikely that she will be ready for another nine months. At present the vessel is lying in the Thames. V^' : ,y^; ; '!•,.; :^.-i: ,:Vv.v. : v ,; .'-' ';'.' A';'.