David Ferguson’s mineral prospecting expedition to South Georgia in 1912

The mineral exploration work in the Falkland Islands by the Scottish geologist and mineral prospector David Ferguson, during the 1913-1914 austral summer, was described in the 2013 issue of Falkland Island Journal (Volume 10, Part 2). But that was Ferguson’s second expedition to the South Atlantic region on behalf of the Christian Salvesen Whaling Company. During 1912 he had visited South Georgia to assess the rocks there for the possible presence of economic minerals. When the Salvesen Company established their onshore whaling station in Stromness Bay in 1909, naming it Leith Harbour after the company’s home port in Scotland, negotiations for mineral rights were promptly begun with the Falkland Islands Government (at that time South Georgia was a Dependency of the Falkland Islands). These were successfully concluded and a formal license allowing prospecting was signed on 31 May 1911 by the Governor of the Falklands, William Allardyce. A copy of the license is preserved in the Salvesen Archive, now held by the University of Edinburgh Library’s Centre for Research Collections, along with other material relevant to Ferguson’s survey including his geological report and some of his photographic prints and glass-plate negatives.