zzard.

Stillwell goes on to describe: "Part of the 15th was spent in making
observations, taking photographs and collecting specimens of rocks and
lichens. Breaking camp, we set out on a northerly course for the coast
down gently falling snowfields. Gradually there opened up a beautiful
vista of sea, dotted with floes and rocky islets (many of which were
ice-capped). On December 16 camp was pitched near the coast on a stretch
of firm, unbroken ice, which enabled one to venture close enough to the
edge to discover an islet connected by a snow-ramp with the icy barrier.
Lying farther off the shore was a thick fringe of islets, among and
beyond which drifted a large quantity of heavy floe. The separate floes
stood some ten or fifteen feet above the water-level, and the lengths of
several exceeded a quarter of a mile. Every accessible rock was covered
with rookeries of Adelie penguins; the first chicks were just hatched."

A theodolite traverse was run to fix the position of each islet. The
traverse-line was carried close to the ice-cliff, so that the number of
islets hidden from view was as few as possible. Snow mounds were built
at intervals and the intervening distances measured by the sledge-meter.

The party travelled west for seven and a quarter miles round a
promontory--Cape Gray--until the Winter Quarters were sighted across
Commonwealth Bay. They then turned eastward over the higher slopes,
meeting the coast some three miles to the east of the place where they
had first encountered it. The surface was for the most part covered with
snow, while crevasses were frequent and treacherous.

In the midst of the survey the sledge-meter broke down, and, as the
party were wholly dependent upon it for laying out base-lines, repairs
had to be made.

[TEXT ILLUSTRATION]

Map showing the remarkable distribution of islets fringing the coast of
Adelie Land in the vicinity of Cape Gray

On the 27th another accessible rocky projection was seen. Over it and
the many islands in the vicinity hovered flocks of snow petrels and
occasional Antarctic and Wilson petrels. Masses of Adelie penguins and
chicks constituted the main population, and skua gulls with eggs were
also observed. The rock was of garnet gneiss, traversed by black dykes
of pyroxene granulite.

A great discovery was made on December 29. On the abrupt, northern face
of some rocks connected to the ice-cap of the mainland by a causeway
of ice a large colony of sea