492 THE ANTARCTIC MANUAL. 
At 10am. we made our twentieth landing on the Pacific slope of 
the Needles, which form the northern cape of Graham Land, to make 
magnetic and astronomical observations and collect what objects of 
interest we could find. This landing-place (XX on map, Fig. 2) 
was quite similar to that on the coast west of the sierra. In places 
the beach was quite free from snow; elsewhere there were little 
glaciers clinging to the slopes of the mountain and terminating sea- 
wards in cliffs of ice. The steep rocky slopes above were absolutely 
bare up to a height of 700 or 1000 feet, and beyond that rose fields of 
névé. Cook and I climbed a little ridge running at right angles to 
the range of the Needles. An inclined plain of snow, interrupted here 
and there in the upper part by transverse crevasses, which were easily 
FIG. 12.—THE NEEDLES, SEEN FROM THE PACIFIC. 
crossed, led us to the rocky wall, which there was no difficulty in 
climbing, thanks to the numerous joints widened by weathering so as 
to cut up the face of rock into superimposed blocks, and thanks also 
to the narrow chimneys down which the débris of the rock slipped. It 
is remarkable that these rocks remained quite bare at an elevation far 
above the snow-line. It is not sufficiently accounted for by the steep- 
ness of the slope, though that would make it possible for only a small 
quantity of snow to accumulate; but the dark walls were so strongly 
heated by the sun that the snow was actually melted. In making the 
ascent we found that the low cloud, so characteristic of these regions, 
was very thin and level on both sides. We passed through the belt of 
mist between the altitudes of 150 and 300 feet, and above that there was 
an absolutely clear sky and dazzling sunshine, while at our feet the cloud 
