502 THE ANTARCTIC MANUAL. 
result of glacier action of some kind, or is simply a raised beach. 
Many stones, however, are blown down from the summit of the cape by 
the furious winds which sweep over those regions all the year round. 
The alternate expansion and contraction caused by seasonal and rapid 
daily changes in temperature is the principal cause in disintegrating 
the cliff. The vicissitudes in temperature during the year, more 
especially during the winter, are at times extreme and astonishing. 
We have witnessed, in the middle of winter, the temperature alter 
in a few hours from —35° Fahr. to +25° Fahr. Ice forming in the 
cavities of the rocks, at a few degrees below the freezing-point, exerts 
an enormous disruptive force. The volcanic rocks, being all porous, in 
the summer collect much moisture; when the temperature falls, they 
have their particles pushed asunder by the freezing of the interstitial 
water. The observed amount of destruction thus caused is enormous; 
large blocks of stone are split off and launched to the base of the 
declivities. Some measure of its magnitude in those regions may be 
seen in the heaps of angular rubbish at the foot of the crags and steep 
slopes all along the coast. There are many places where soil might 
form if it were not for the action of the winds, which blow all the finer 
disintegrated particles into the sea. The winds, blowing with cyclonic 
force, are so strong that loose rocks on the face of the cliff are hurled 
down, and blocks of stone and loose gravel swept away. Gravel and 
pebbles were heaped up in mounds and ridges. In some places these 
ridges coalesced so as to enclose basin-shaped hollows, that were 
filled with strong-smelling liquid matter, which, in the winter, froze 
solid. Some of these hollows were more than 100 yards in diameter. 
Bleached remains of thousands of penguins were scattered all over the 
platform, mostly young birds that had succumbed to the severity of 
climate. Thousands of years hence, if the species should become 
extinct, those remains, frozen and buried among the débris, will be 
available as a proof of what once existed in those gelid regions, now 
just habitable, then, perhaps, not at all. That same night Mr, Evans 
and I climbed to the summit of Cape Adare (850 feet by aneroid). By 
following a ridge of craggy rocks we found the climbing tolerably easy, 
and reached the top in less than an hour. The scene before us looked 
inexpressibly desolate. A more barren desert can scarcely be conceived, 
but one of immense interest from a geological point of view. From the 
end of the cape to the foot of the mountain beyond, a great waste of 
hollows and ridges lay before our eyes—ridges rising beyond ridges 
like ocean waves whose tumult had been suddenly frozen into stone. 
Beds of snow and ice filled up some of these extensive hollows, which 
had been scooped out by glacier action. Innumerable large erratic 
boulders lay scattered about, which had, no doubt, been transported to 
their present positions by the ice-sheets from places many miles away. 
Qne huge boulder, which, rested on the outer edge of a great basin 
