486 THE ANTARCTIC MANUAL. 
severity of nature. Alone in the crow’s-nest, I rejoiced at my good 
fortune in attaining so great a reward for my voyage as this feast of 
grandeur and beauty. 
On Wednesday, February 9, at 7.30 a.m., we made our fifteenth 
landing (XV on map, Fig. 2). The whole coast appeared like one 
great roche moutonnée entirely free from snow, everywhere smoothly 
polished and scored with sharp grooves, often very deep, running in all 
directions and crossing each other. The larger were vacant, but others 
were filled with thin leaves of rock, and some with compact grey veins, 
giving the rock a schistose appearance. The surface of the granite was 
strewn with splinters split off by the effects of radiation, usually from 
one-third to two-thirds of an inch thick, and about a foot in diameter. 
There were no erratic blocks. The rocks were bare up to a height of 
about 150 feet, but from this level the snow uniformly covered the 
island. The sheet of snow gave rise to a trickle of water, forming 
cascades, under which an abundant vegetation of mosses and alga had 
accumulated. A few tufts of moss were found here and there among 
the stones. The sun shone strongly, and the bare rock grew quite 
warm. At 8 a.m. on the Belgica, when the air-temperature was 41° Fahr., 
the black-bulb thermometer in the sun read 87°-8, hence the splintering 
of the surface of the rocks could easily be understood. 
At ten o’clock we were on board again, heading south out of the 
channel, and as we passed along the coast I saw several semi-cylin- 
drical ice-caves from which streams issued, but the tunnels were small 
compared to the great mass of the ice. At 10.30 we passed the cape at 
the south end of the mountainous island we had been coasting, and the 
recording thermometer fell, while the hygrometer rose sharply, as the 
influence of the ocean made itself felt; and in the distance great ice- 
bergs could be seen in the open Pacific. I counted a group of twelve 
small, low islands, mere domes of snow, bordering the large island in 
the south-west ; and at eleven o’clock we made the sixteenth landing on 
one of them (XVI on map, Fig. 2). Lecointe landed for the noon 
observation of the sun, making use, as before, of an artificial horizon; 
Racovitza, Cook, Danco, and I accompanied him. The whole islet was 
covered with moist snow almost to the water’s edge; it was strange to 
see so great a difference in the height of the snow-line in so short a 
distance as that separating the XV and XVI landings. . 
These low islets are more exposed to the humid winds from the 
western ocean, and consequently receive a greater precipitation, the 
snow not all melting in summer. On the snow we found penguins’ 
feathers, shells carried by the birds, and all kinds of dirt, producing 
hollows by absorbing heat from the sun, and sometimes these holes 
were rather deep. The névé, which was all oozing with water, was com- 
pact at a trifling depth, where it changed into ice. The ice-cap of this 
islet was crossed by a single narrow crevasse. The rocks round the edge 
