In 1958, at the close of the International Geophysical Year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States initiated long-term plans for the support of Antarctic biological research. These plans included the erection and outfitting of a modest, but modern, biological laboratory at the United States station at “McMurdo” on Ross Island in the late summer and early winter 1959. With the increasingly diversified biological research programmes, and with the active construction and supply programmes in subsequent years, the biological laboratory has now become one of the largest Antarctic research facilities for a single scientific discipline.