1911] CLIFFS OF CAPE CROZIER 57 



crew was displaced and the oars manned by Oates, Atkinson, 

 and Cherry-Garrard, the latter catching several crabs. 



The swell made it impossible for us to land. I had hoped 

 to see whether there was room to pass between the pressure 

 ridge and the cliff, a route by which Royds once descended to 

 the Emperor rookery; as we approached the corner we saw 

 that a large piece of sea floe ice had been jammed between the 

 Barrier and the cliff and had buckled up till its under surface 

 stood 3 or 4 ft. above the water. On top of this old floe we 

 saw an old Emperor moulting and a young one shedding its 

 down. (The down had come off the head and flippers and 

 commenced to come off the breast in a vertical line similar to 

 the ordinary moult.) This is an age and stage of development 

 of the Emperor chick of which we have no knowledge, and it 

 would have been a triumph to have secured the chick, but, alas ! 

 there was no way to get at it. Another most curious sight was 

 the feet and tails of two chicks and the flipper of an adult bird 

 projecting from the ice on the under side of the jammed floe; 

 they had evidently been frozen in above and were being washed 

 out under the floe. 



Finding it impossible to land owing to the swell, we pulled 

 along the cliffs for a short way. These Crozier cliffs are re- 

 markably interesting. The rock, mainly volcanic tuff, includes 

 thick strata of columnar basalt, and one could see beautiful de- 

 signs of jammed and twisted columns as well as caves with 

 whole and half pillars very much like a miniature Giant's Cause- 

 way. Bands of bright yellow occurred in the rich brown of the 

 cliffs, caused, the geologists think, by the action of salts on the 

 brown rock. In places the cliffs overhung. In places, the sea 

 had eaten long low caves deep under them, and continued to 

 break into them over a shelving beach. Icicles hung pendant 

 everywhere, and from one fringe a continuous trickle of thaw 

 water had swollen to a miniature waterfall. It was like a big 

 hose playing over the cliff edge. We noticed a very clear echo 

 as we passed close to a perpendicular rock face. Later we re- 

 turned to the ship, v/hich had been trying to turn in the bay 

 — she is not very satisfactory in this respect owing to the diffi- 

 culty of starting the engines either ahead or astern — several 

 minutes often elapse after the telegraph has been put over be- 

 fore there is any movement of the engines. 



