THE TERRA NOVA GOES SOUTH 83 



scalp as soon as he saw its plumage. We then rowed west 

 for half a mile under the lava cliffs. Some lenticular patches 

 of white material among: the dark basalt reminded me of the 

 alternating layers of snow and lava seen in a volcanic island 

 in the South Pacific. But this white material was not snow, 

 but a basic ash from which all the iron (the colouring material 

 in Vulcan's workshop) had been bleached out. We felt rain 

 falling, and looked up to see that we were right under the 

 water from the melting snows of Terror, which dropped 250 

 feet from the crumbling lavas. Lest the latter should also fall on 

 us, we moved seaward. A magnificent series of basalt columns 

 appeared before us. They were long, narrow, hexagonal rods 

 rather than columns, curved and interlocked, and about a 

 hundred feet long. For a hundred yards or more, the appear- 

 ance of this cliff face reminded me of the fracture of a 

 coarsely crystalline piece of cast iron. I have not heard of 

 a parallel case of columnar basalt. There was no hope of 

 landing under these cliffs, so we made for the ship, and soon 

 put off to the penguin rookeries, where some sea-ice might 

 be expected to remain. After passing some stranded bergs, 

 we came abreast of the penguin colonies, and the sea was 

 perfectly full of the birds cruising about in search of their 

 shrimp-like food. I have never seen seas so teeming with 

 life. The explanation is that these polar waters are free from 

 the bacteria which break up protoplasm and so render it to 

 some extent useless for food. The cold waters act as a kind 

 of cold storage, and supply unlimited food material for higher 

 organisms in the form of algae and protozoa, which quickly 

 vanish after death in warmer regions. At the other end of 

 the scale of life in the Antarctic are the warm-blooded killer- 

 whales (orca), of which we saw a party of three busy gobbling 

 up penguins. The cycle involved has been described by one 

 ot the scientists on board in a rhyme, which is descriptive, if 

 not poetical : — 



