The conduct of science in Antarctica has changed through the years both in character and size. Science is a broad term which can cover a wide range of activities, but the goal of those activities, as seen by National Geographic, is the production of knowledge48. Throughout the last century of the magazine, there have been changes to the scale of knowledge production described in Antarc-tica as well as shifts in the priorities of which subjects to study. Science has
43 Ellsworth 1936.
44 Floyd Bennet (1890-1928) was Richard Byrd’s pilot on his attempted flight over the North Pole in 1926. Byrd was devastated by Bennet’s death in 1928 from pneumonia contracted as a result from a crash of a test flight for the Orteig prize (for the first trans-Atlantic flight). In addition to dropping a stone from his grave at the South Pole, Byrd honored his former pilot by naming the airplane that he flew in on that expedition after Bennet.
45 Byrd 1930: 216.
46 Byrd 1947: 463-464.
47 Clinch 1967.
48 Grosvenor 1907.
become the dominant activity on the continent through the developments of the IGY and subsequent inscription into the Antarctic Treaty. The Antarctic Treaty is an agreement made between nations, however it positions science as the one activity which legitimates national membership in the Treaty through Article Nine49. The growth of the dominance of science in Antarctica can be seen through the increasing use of laboratory metaphors to describe the continent and its component parts.
This growth into a dominant activity was accompanied by a change in the char-acter of scientific contingents of Antarctic expeditions. Throughout the first half of the last century, leading up to the IGY, the most heavily promoted Antarctic science was that of geography. Other sciences were acknowledged as being important and conducted alongside geography, but it was the understanding and mapping of this previously unexplored continent which took precedence over other activities. Several early accounts of expeditions made this very ex-plicit by listing geographic discovery as the first in a list of sciences to be con-ducted50. Other scientific observations, such as meteorological records, were said to be specifically valuable if they were conducted in newly-discovered area51. At the same time, different priority lists show that science is less impor-tant than shows of national claims or accomplishment during this period. The ranking of geographic interests above other scientific ones was also an indi-cator that national interests were prioritized higher than the pursuit of general knowledge, since early geography was known to be an imperial science, help-ing to catalog territory and legitimate the claims of its sponsors. For those people who did not think that planting the U.S. flag at the South Pole was sufficient enough reason to mount an expedition, scientific advancement was given as a secondary reason to send an American expedition to the South Pole52. Amundsen was praised in the magazine for finding a new route to get to the South Pole and increase geographic knowledge, just as other expeditions were criticized for attempting the only known route53. This known route was taken because the representatives of the nations involved sought to be the first to claim dominion over the pole first and prioritized that above the collection of new data in new lands. The scientific results and collections acquired during the German expedition were clearly stated to be the property of its government, although scientists would be employed to arrange them54. In this way, scientists were directly subsumed beneath the state.
The growth in the importance of conducting Antarctic science for its own sake started appearing in the rhetoric of National Geographic in the 1930s and grew from there. Byrd noted that science made up the bulk of the work conducted during the time his group was in Antarctica and was proud to send out “one of the longest sledge journeys ever made for purely scientific purposes”55. In a later expedition, Byrd commented that he took more people to the continent
49 Treaty 1959.
50 National Geographic 1901b; Byrd 1947.
51 National Geographic 1903a.
52 Grosvenor 1910.
53 National Geographic 1911; 1912.
54 Kollm 1901.
55 Byrd 1930: 220.
solely because he would require a large staff of scientists56. In a counterpoint to the 1910 proposal of a South Polar expedition, Byrd also curtailed his own am-bitions to get to the Pole on one trip with scientists in favor of scientific objec-tives:
"Needless to say, there was an urge to go on to the Pole itself, which they could have done had they prepared for it. But their work lay in the mountains which, scientifically, were more important than reach-ing the Pole"57.
As the importance of science in general arose, the stress on geographical dis-covery started to wane. This paralleled the development of scientific equipment, which scientists were eager to apply to the continent. Although in his 1947 ar-ticle, Byrd still ostensibly ranked geographical discovery above pure science, he included this quote:
"Equally as important as immediate geographical discovery was the responsibility of learning to use these marvelous new instruments, to test them under extreme conditions, to ascertain and devise means of overcoming their defects. In this respect we were pioneers, trail blazers of exploration's new age"58.
The simultaneous subjegation of “pure science” to geographical discovery and the equality shown between that discovery and the testing of new scientific equipment indicates that this was truly a transition period in which priorities were changing even within the article itself. The quote acknowledges this transi-tion itself by noting the entrance of “exploratransi-tion’s new age”.
This new age of a more scientific brand of Antarctic exploration was readily ap-parent in the National Geographic articles regarding development and conduc-tion of the IGY. The shift to a scientific motivaconduc-tion came with some skepticism, but the scientist Paul Siple tried to assuage the reader’s doubts:
"Some people, I know, find it difficult to believe that such stations in Antarctica are truly part of a peaceful, open, international scientific research effort. They question the avowed free exchange of scientific discovery among IGY nations. They point out that American armed forces built our Antarctic houses. They even circulate rumors we are planning to use Antarctica for testing atom and hydrogen bombs.
These rumors are definitely not true"59.
An open confrontation of these doubts was appropriate for the time, given the history of nations claiming portions of the continent as their own. As noted in the previous section, this period of time was also a transition from claims to coop-eration rhetoric, so the overall image of Antarctica had to be transitioned. Know-ledge during this time was extolled as a great enterprise, being of inestimable value, and raw material for future problem-solving (Siple 1957; Dufek 1959;
Fuchs 1959). The scientific work became less about striking out into newly discovered territory and more about the scientific questions that the continent could yield answers to through investigation. Admiral George Dufek (1903-1977), the Naval Commander of Operation Deep Freeze which prepared the American scientific stations for the IGY, noted that recruiting scientists had
56 Byrd 1935.
57 Byrd 1935: 457.
58 Byrd 1947: 432.
59 Siple 1957: 20.
become more difficult as Antarctic work became more routine and less glamorous60. This was a sign that scientific activity had gained a degree of normalcy in Antarctica.
Although the glamour had worn off, this new age of scientific investigation in Antarctica brought with it many advantages and power for scientists. After the IGY, it was more well-established that science could be legitimately called a dominant activity on the continent. In an article entitled “New Era in the Lone-liest Continent”, the author states that:
"The United States spends millions of dollars each year and sends hundreds of men to this inhospitable continent, not for military or eco-nomic reasons, but for scientific investigations and for development of the world's last true frontier. The role of the Navy in this endeavor is that of support- building and maintaining the bases, and providing the housing, food, and transportation that the scientists need"61
The needs of the scientist are shown in this quote to be of primary importance.
American scientists no longer had to be experts in cold-weather survival be-cause their logistical needs were supplied by the U.S. Navy62. Sophisticated equipment was imported to the continent for use by scientists63. Even nature came to be seen as subject to the need of scientists, as one noted a penguin that was captured, studied, and then released after providing a service to sci-ence. In the last few decades of the twentieth century , science seemed be implicitly in command. One article abstractly labeled science as “king” in Ant-arctica64 and another specifically noted that the chief scientist aboard the USAP research ship Nathanial Palmer directed where it should go65.
The growth of the laboratory metaphor for Antarctica within National Geogra-phic’s articles paralleled this growth of scientific power and prestige. Labora-tories are sites of scientific power. Although the actual practice of science within laboratories has been famously critiqued66, in their ideal form laboratories are controlled settings in which the scientist may experiment without interference from the world outside. Within the confines of the laboratory, the scientist is in control of things. The first reference to Antarctica as a laboratory within the magazine came from Byrd in 1930 in his description of his flight to the South Pole:
"I counted fourteen mountain peaks (and there were more) running north and south for about 30 miles. Here was something to put on maps; here was a fine laboratory for geological exploration"67.
The laboratory metaphor is initially restricted to a mountain range of Antarctica, and also limited to geologists. In his article regarding Operation High Jump later in 1947, Byrd would expand the metaphor to include a few more sciences and apply it to the entirety of Antarctica:
“Here has been set up by Nature herself a titanic physical, chemical,
60 Dufek 1959.
61 Tyree 1963: 282.
62 Matthews 1968.
63 Matthews 1971.
64 Vesilind 1987.
65 Stevens 1996.
66 Latour and Woolgar 1979.
67 Byrd 1930: 157.
and biological laboratory where phenomena impossible of duplication elsewhere are in progress"68.
This statement by Byrd would later be quoted again in the magazine, reiterating its importance as an Antarctic descriptor69. In another article, Grosvenor would refer to Antarctic mountains as laboratories70. Later articles would qualify the term laboratory in different ways to stress certain aspects about Antarctica. In a 1968 article, Antarctica was described as both an “International Laboratory”, linking it to the theme of international cooperation mentioned in the previous section, and a “Laboratory of Peaceful Exploration” which may have heavily contrasted with the news of the Vietnam War that the United States was en-gaged in at the time71. The laboratory metaphor would be expanded out to encompass the world in one article72, and so the classification of Antarctica as a
“unique laboratory” became necessary73. As environmental identities of Antarc-tica arose, they were also incorporated into this metaphor as AntarcAntarc-tica became a “vast natural laboratory for the study of our planet”74. By studying the planet, the hope became to prevent environmental catastrophes:
"The fifth largest continent is a giant outdoor laboratory where scien-tists strive to decipher clues to our planet's history and detect early warning signs of global pollution"75.
This shows that while the metaphor for a scientifically controlled area has grown to be a powerful icon for representing Antarctica, it has the capability of incorpo-rating additional ideas into it.