ANTARCTIC INTEREST PURELY POLITICAL

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5296, 8 January 1947, Page 5

ANTARCTIC INTEREST PURELY POLITICAL

(Press Assn.

URANIUM "NONSENSE" VIEWS OF EMINENT ' POLAR EXPLORER .

— Rec. 9.80 p.m.)

LONDON, Jan. 7. "Nonsense," was the comment of Professor Frank Debenham, O.B.E., founder and late director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge University, on the theory that beneath the Antarctic icecap there are rich deposits of uranium— metal from which atomic energy is derived. • Interviewed hy the Sunday Exprass which pointed out that eight expeditions to the South Polar dcecap had been planned by'nine nations, Professor Debenham said there was no proof that uraniuim lay beneath the ice, and that even if it were there and could be located it certainly could not be worked. "The average dtepth of the icecap, which is always on the move, is probably about 4000 feet," Professor Debenham said. "And all the atomic energy in the world could not melt it or move it — -and keep it melted or at bay — to enable mining operations for uranium. Regarding minerals, Professor Debenham said that even if good quantities of copper, good, coal and. oil were found the cost of winning them wo.uld be out of all proportion to their value. "The only immediate economic prizes to win from the Antarctic are in the whaling inidustry, and these are being scientifieally expl'oited hy international agreement," he procoded. "So it becomes increasingly clear that the international rivalry underlying the purely scientific r-a-ture of Antarctic expeditions is political." Professor Debenham added that the immediate henefit of holding areas in the South Polar regions- were first that it was of value in estahlishing whaling stations; secondly, it was of great help, in meteorology. Knowledge of the behaviour of the great Antarctic gales enabled the weather of the S-outh Atlantic and South PaciLic to he forecast accurately over a wide area. Finally, mankind might henefit hy development of Antarctic «sanatoria. It was one of the healthiest regions in the world, and there had been almost dramatic cures of consumption of men who joined the -South Polar expeditions. "It is unlikely that there will be any development of economic resources of the Antarctic until wc have discovered a way of radiating energy by air," Professor Debenham adde. "If we can do tliat we can harness the gales that blow all the year round throughout the area."