Part I: Seals teeth and whales ears - Scott Polar Research Institute ...

meant that I would take at least three years from registration in April 1950 to
complete my PhD degree. In effect my thesis would be based on two summers
at Signy Island and 1 summer at South Georgia, because there was little or no
opportunity for studying seals during the Antarctic winter. The laboratory
work and writing-up would amount to 2 1 2 years in Cambridge, l950 and 1952-
53. I was given a large, dark room to myself on the ground floor of the old
Museum of Zoology, where I was able to spread myself once my specimens
arrived on the John Biscoe.. The summer term was spent reading the relevant
scientific literature and working on my method of determining age from the
growth layers I had found in the seal teeth. I completed writing my first two
papers for publication – one on the methods I had developed for marking seals,
and the other on the new method of age determination for a new series of FIDS
Scientific Reports being established by Dr Fuchs. ]
When my other specimens arrived on the John Biscoe I began work on
sectioning seal ovaries and establishing the gross pattern of the reproductive
cycle, and cutting and staining thin sections for histological examination. It was
agreed that my thesis was to be provisionally entitled “The reproductive cycle
of the southern elephant seal”. And so I had to be very selective in what I
included in my thesis; a limit of 80,000 words in length was obligatory.
Consequently, most of my detailed work on growth and age, behaviour and
population dynamics could not be included in the thesis, but was published
separately. I had an enormous amount of observations, data and specimens, all
of which I would have to work up myself, including preparation of tooth
sections, tissue sections, photo-micrography and other processes without
assistance. In the l950’s there were no mechanical calculators, let alone
electronic calculators or computers available. From this mass of materials I
published five substantial papers/monographs published in l953-56, on age
determination, growth and age, reproductive and social behaviour,
reproductive physiology (the main thrust of the dissertation), and population
dynamics and management. (In all I published some fifteen papers arising
from my PhD work).
I was extremely busy in those few months I had to write up my first two
scientific papers, to check on the quality of the material I had collected, by
preliminary observations. I followed up the ideas formed in my years of
isolation by going through the relevant scientific literature, and preparing for a
further year in the field at South Georgia. So I was hard at work for most of
that summer, “burning the midnight oil”. In addition I was re-adjusting to
civilized life and pleasures, such as tennis, squash and punting. In the time
remaining I was pursuing my courtship of Maureen! By then I had already
decided that she was the girl for me. Ray Adie was in Cambridge working on
his PhD on the Geology of the Antarctic Peninsula in the Department of
Geology. He had spent three continuous years in the field working out from
Hope Bay (Base D) and Stonington (Base E), where he spent a year longer than
planned, due to the relief being prevented in l948-49 by adverse ice conditions.
We saw a lot of each other as his laboratory was just across the street from me.
We met up at the “Bun Shop” for morning coffee or afternoon tea or for lunch
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