WHALING EXPEDITION.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16606, 9 December 1924, Page 8

WHALING EXPEDITION.

DEATH OF THE CAPTAIN

tl'er Press Association.) DUNEDIN, last night, Wireless news was received yesterday of the sudden death from heart trouble of Captain C Larsen, master of the Sir James Clark Ross, mother ship of the whaling expedition, now operating in Boss Sea. Captain Larson's widow is at present residing at Port Chalmers.

The ship Sir dames Clark Ross left Hobarfc a fortnight ago on a whaling expedition lo the Ross Sea. Whaling in the southern hemisphere had a great revival during*the war (states the Sydney Sun). Fur the year 1916-17. the value of the whale oil and other whale products from the British possessions tc the south of the Falklands, rose to £3,vOO,OCO, and the total value for the years from 1913 to 1919, was, roughly, £lO,030,000. The companies operating down there paid dividends running as high as 135 per cent. . Incidentally, the whaling Ln these inhospitable regions to the east and southeast of Cape Horn, resulted in the addition, of over a million square miles to the British Empire. When operations at South Georgia and the South Shetlands were first carried on in a big way. Sir William "Allardyce, afterwards Governor of Tasmania, was Governor of the Falkland Islands, a forgotten little corner of the world, mostly devoted to tile rearing of sheep. Argentina still claims that the Falkland Islands belong lo her, it; viiiue i f a former Spanish occupation. Indeed, when Sir William Allardyce visited Buenos Ay res, he was given lo understand that the President of Argentina would he pleased to receive Mr. Allardyce (as he was then), hut could not receive the British Governor of the. Falllands, because he (lid not recognise the existence of such a. person. Some of the whaling companies formed 1,, carry on whaling in the far Ronth, had their headquarters in Buenos Ayres, and ii looked as if there might he trouble over territorial rights in South Georgia, or the Shetlands, to which whaling had suddenly given a, value. Sir William Allardyce wasted no time, over the matter. 'He arranged for the annexation lo the British Empire of all islands, lands, rocks, and icefields for about 30 degrees of longitude and extending southward as far as "the south pole. This gave the Umpire not only South Georgia, the South Shetlands, South Orkney, and a number of other islands, bat a large slice id' the Antarctic continent, with total area of about 1.000.000 square, miles. More recently whaling has led to annexation in the Australasian quadrant of the Antarctic. When the. bold Norwegian explorer, Raold Amundsen, fame hack from the South Pole in 1912. he noticed that whales abounded in the Bay of Whales, an inlet, of the Ross Sea. Last year the shores of the Ross Sea were annexed to New Zealand. The Ross Sea section of the Antarctic continent has been annexed to New Zealand but there are plenty of whales along tho coast of the Antarctic further west, a region that can fairly he claimed for Australia, as a result of its exploration b v life Mawson expedition. Sir Douglas Mawson believes that eventually this wdl prove a very valuable whaling and sealj,„r ground.'and that, with proper com-s-trvalion, there is no reason why if B | mu ld! be depleted,, as the Australian grounds were in the early days.