X9ii] 
CLIFFS OF CAPE CROZIER 
83 
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 remarkably interesting. The rock, mainly vol- 
canic tuff, includes thick strata of columnar basalt, and 
one could see beautiful designs of jammed and twisted 
columns as well as caves with whole and half pillars very 
much like a miniature Giant's Causeway. 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 pendent every- 
where, 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 returned to the ship, which had been trying to 
turn in the bay — she is not very satisfactory in this respect 
owing to the difficulty of starting the engines either ahead 
