In 1939 Dr Thomas C. Poulter, Director of the Armour Institute, Chicago and a veteran of Byrd's second Antarctic expedition, designed and constructed a 30 tonne wheeled vehicle known as the Snow Cruiser for use with the US Antarctic Service Expedition. Designed for self-contained long-distance travel, the vehicle had many new features including twin diesel engines, independent electric drive and steering on each of its four wheels, and a light aircraft carried on the roof. It was built in Chicago and tested briefly on sand dunes nearby, before being driven to Boston amid much public interest for shipment to Antarctica. At the Bay of Whales the vehicle quickly became bogged down in snow, and never moved farther south than the expedition's winter quarters. Modern evaluation of wheel-snow interaction suggests that the Snow'Cruiser unladen was three to five times too heavy for its tyres to support it on snow surfaces. It was nevertheless a bold attempt to push forward the frontiers of mobility in exploration, which failed in a spectacular fashion. The vehicle was left behind when the expedition returned home, and has subsequently been lost.

During World War II the German Navy, trying to compensate for the loss of meteorological data from stations in Greenland, Iceland and other areas of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, established automatic weather stations, weather ships and manned weather stations in a zone stretching from Labrador to Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa. In summer 1944 one of the last of the manned stations (code-named Haudegen) was established on Svalbard at Wordiebukta, Rijpfjorden, Nordaustlandet. A party of 11, led by geographer Dr Wilhelm Dege, collected and transmitted weather data from 14 September 1944 to 5 September 1945; the party also explored and mapped the ice-free corridor extending south across Nordaustlandet to the head of Wahlenbergfjorden and much of the north coast from Kapp Loven east to Finn Malmgrenfjorden. After the German surrender in May 1945 the men of Haudegen found themselves apparently forgotten by Allied authorities in Norway, and began preparing for a second winter. They surrendered ultimately to the captain of the Norwegian sealer Blaasel on 4 September 1945, and were thus the last members of the German armed forces to surrender at the end of World War II.

The question of Antarctica was discussed at the United Nations General Assembly in 1985 for the third successive year. While the content of the debates differed little from that of previous years, the discussions resulted in the adoption, by large majorities, of three resolutions in favour of an expanded and up-dated UN Study on Antarctica, the provision of information for the UN on the Antarctic minerals regime negotiations, and the exclusion of South Africa from the Antarctic Treaty System. The Antarctic Treaty powers, favouring no real UN role in Antarctica, stressed the need to maintain the present arrangements and did not participate in the UN votes on the three resolutions. The apparent breakdown of the consensus approach that was characteristic of 1983 and 1984 raises a question for the future; will 1986 witness bridge-building or continuing divisions on the most appropriate way to manage Antarctica in the future?

Through the 1950s and 1960s there was a marked increase in recorded numbers of polar bears being killed for their hides, giving rise to world-wide concern that the species might be endangered. At a meeting in Fairbanks, Alaska 1965, representatives of circumpolar arctic nations discussed conservation of polar bears and concluded that international coordination of research and management efforts was essential. Subsequent meetings of scientists engaged in polar bear research were organized every two years by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, facilitating exchanges of views and cooperation; as a result, in 1973 the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears and their Habitats was signed in Oslo, Norway. This paper describes some of the research and management undertaken in the years leading up to the agreement, and initiatives that are continuing because of it.

Victorian and Edwardian travellers who ventured into little-known parts of the world formed essential links between the early pioneer geographical and scientific explorers, and modern tourists of today. While they were generally cultured people, interested in making useful observations in the areas they visited, they often indulged in travel for its own sake, devoting much of their lives to it almost as an addiction. Aubyn Bernard Rochfort Trevor-Battye (Figure 1) was just such a person. He was a gentleman of means who spent much time travelling, and can be considered a minor explorer. He excelled as an observer of peoples and wildlife; he was an adequate draughtsman, and his writing holds the attention of the reader though it lacks finesse. Of his verse, possibly the less said the better.