Oxford Expeditions to Nordaustlandet (North East Land), Spitsbergen

FOLLOWER of arctic exploration since 1920 cannot have failed to notice the very large number of expeditions organized by undergraduates of British universities. The pioneers in this movement were Oxford and Cambridge, which are still in the vanguard today. Whereas Cambridge is fortunate in possessing the Scott Polar Research Institute as well as a formidable number of senior polar experts, Oxford's work has received its stimulus through the purely local Oxford University Exploration Club and has always suffered from a lack of building and library facilities. Nevertheless, the O.U.E.C. has eleven honorary and some one hundred life members, besides numerous temporary adherents. About twenty gradu- ates and undergraduates attend the regular Club meetings and forty-five are listed as taking part in one or more expeditions in the period 1947-50 (O.U.E.C. Bull. No. 4, 1951). The regions visited in these four years are Jan Mayen, Iceland, Gambia, northwestern Scotland, western Ireland, Mount Kenya, Nordaustlandet, Gulf of Guinea, eastern Persia, and Finnmark. In 1951 parties visited Nordaustlandet and the Kiunga Archipelago (Kenya), while in 1952 a group penetrated as far as the Central Himalaya. The Club has long been noted for its work in polar and mountainous areas. Perhaps this bias springs from the interests of its founders and of its present mentors, who include Charles Elton, Dr. K. S. Sandford, Professor Kenneth Mason, Professor A. C. Hardy, R. Scott Russell, Amyan Macfadyen, Dr. T. G. Longstaff, and the late Lord Tweedsmuir. Among the Oxford polar expedi- tions, five have visited Nordaustlandet, the second largest island in Spitsbergen (Fig. 1). It is with these parties, and their predecessors, that the following account is concerned. Of non-Oxford expeditions (Fig. 2), Nordenskiold's splendid thrust along the north coast and across the interior ice caps was hardly more than a pioneer reconnaissance, leaving no trace on present maps, apart from place names (Leslie, 1879). Koldewey's map of the extreme southwest (Koldewey, 187 1) is correct as to details of terrain but somewhat inaccurate in its geographical relations. The survey of the west coast by the Russo-Swedish Arc of Meridian expedition (de Geer, 192 3) is fairly accurate, except in one area (Thompson (B), unpubl.), and is rightly incorporated in modern charts. Except for Glen's party (discussed later), Ahlmann's Swedish-Norwegian expedition of 193 1 was the most productive to visit Nordaustlandet (Ahlmann, 1933). Although little topographical surveying was attempted, detailed geological mapping was