University Station At Cape Royds Suggested

Press, Volume C, Issue 29696, 14 December 1961, Page 15

University Station At Cape Royds Suggested

The University of Canterbury’s zoology department would like to have its own research establishment at Cape Royds in McMurdo Sound, and proposals are to be put to appropriate authorities. If successful it will be the first attempt by a New Zealand university to have its own research station in the Antarctic, said Dr. B. Stonehouse, a lecturer in the department, whose recommendations have played an important part in forming the proposal. Dr. Stonehouse, who recently spent six weeks at Cape Royds doing biological studies, said the proposal was in no way meant as a moan “The Antarctic Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has been most courteous in allowing us to use Shackleton’s hut, but frankly it didn’t make a good biological laboratory.” He said the hut was primarily a museum in a sense, and because of this members of the party from the university doing research there felt somewhat restricted. “What we want is a

research station which is designed as a research station. What I have in mind are two smallish sectional buildings, one of which could include a living room and a laboratory, and the other to house a generator and store,’’ he said. Dr. Stonehouse suggested that the establishment would have to be one that would last for several years and which could operate not only in the Antarctic summer season but in the winter too it such research was required. Dr. Stonehouse said he believed there were some bodies which might be prepared to finance such a proposal. As an example, he said, both the University of Victoria’s and the University of Canterbury's Antarctic research programmes had been financed by the University Grants Committee. “I would like to emphasise that the whole matter at this moment is no more than an intention in the strictest sense of the Word,” said Dr Stonehouse. Professor G. A. Knox, head of the zoology department, shares Dr. Stonehouse’s enthusiasm for the erection of a permanent base at Cape Royds. The only drawback, he said yesterday, was one of available finance. “We would hope the first stage of building could be in by next summer, although much work will have to be done beforehand. The entire matter will depend on what the various committees handling the proposal decide to do,” said Professor Knox.