PURE SCIENCE MUSEUM

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28939, 6 July 1959, Page 14

PURE SCIENCE MUSEUM

Plans Of City Group A band of enthusiasts from Canterbury University, led by Professor R. J. Rastrick of the mechanical engineering department, and Mr P. J. Alley, senior lecturer in soil science, decided about a year ago that a Canterbury science museum was needed to complement the preset museum of naturtl science and anthropology. They formed the Canterbury Science Museum interim committee of representatives from all engineering, physics and mechanics departments of the university, and shortly they intend to call a public meeting to advance the idea.

They contend—and both the university and the Canterbury Museum authorities agree—that there is a case for a museum of pure and applied science in which historical pieces of equipment can be displayed (and preserved) and where some instruction in those branches of science can be given. Such a museum would be independent of both the university and the Canterbury Museum because, although both bodies are in favour of the idea, neither wants to take the responsibility of beginning a new institution of that kind.

It is thought that already many valuable pieces of scientific and technological equipment have been lost because people have either sent them elsewhere or have failed to recognise their value and thrown them out. Much of Lord Rutherford's equipment is feared to have been lost to a future Canterbury Science Museum.

T 6 provoke public interest in their idea the interim committee has set up a display in a corner of the Durham street art gallery where the U.N.E.S.C.O. science exhibition will open today.