ANTARCTIC RESEARCH

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 24877, 26 April 1944, Page 5

ANTARCTIC RESEARCH

BRITISH EXPEDITION TO REMAIN FOR TWO YEARS (Reed. 5.35 p.m.) LONDON, April '2-1 The Colonial Office announces that an arrangement has been made for scientific research and survey work to be resumed in some of the most remote of British possessions—the dependencies of the Falkland Islands. The personnel, who include administrative officials, have already arrived, and bases have been established. The expedition is led by Lieutenant-Commander J. W. S. Marr. R.N.V.R., who has had exceptional experience in the Antarctic, both in exploration and research.

It is hoped that members of this party of L 4 British volunteer research scientific workers will solve a number of radio beam problems, says the Daily Mail. Antarctic experts believe that scientific discoveries which will be ot' great importance after the war to the world are probable. The party, which will remain in the Antarctic for two years, includes some of the best scientific brains in Britain.

The expedition bears the appearance of a revival of the scientific work carried on for a number of years before the war by the Discovery Committee, a body organised and financed by the Colonial Office and the Government of the Falkland Islands. The last-named is responsible for a dependency embracing 60 degrees of longitude from the South Pole, and containing South Georgia, the Sandwich, South Orkney and South Shetland Groups, the Weddel Sea and Graham Land, on the Antarctic Continent. In the Falkland Islands Government commissioned the Royal research ship Discovery 11. ("IO'JO Ions), and up to the outbreak of the war this ship had carried out five commissions, including at least two circumnavigations along the fringe of the Antarctic ice, and had done most valuable work in studying the life-historv, migrations, food supply and distribution of whales, ft had also collected most valuable data on marine life, on chemical and physical conditions in the sea and on weather. The Discovery If. made at least two visits to Now Zealand, the last in January, Ifh'iK. Lieutenant-Commander .Marr, as a Boy Scout patrol leader, took part in the Shackleton Antarctic expedition iri the Quest. He has done much marine zoological work in the Arctic and Antarctic, and was a member of the scientific staff of Discovery 11. when she called at Auckland some ten years ago. He is a graduate in biology of Aberdeen University,