Ponting was very busy with cinematograph and camera.  In the angle at the corner near the cliffs Rennick got a sounding of 140 fathoms and Nelson some temperatures and samples.  When lowering the water bottle on one occasion the line suddenly became slack at 100 metres, then after a moment’s pause began to run out again.  We are curious to know the cause, and imagine the bottle struck a seal or whale.

Meanwhile, one of the whale boats was lowered and Wilson, Griffith Taylor, Priestley, Evans, and I were pulled towards the shore.  The after-guard are so keen that the proper boat’s crew was displaced and the oars manned by Oates, Atkinson, and Cherry-Garrard, the latter catching several crabs.

The swell made it impossible for us to land.  I had hoped to see whether there was room to pass between the pressure ridge and the cliff, a route by which Royds once descended to the Emperor rookery; as we approached the corner we saw that a large piece of sea floe ice had been jammed between the Barrier and the cliff and had buckled up till its under surface stood 3 or 4 ft. above the water.  On top of this old floe we saw an old Emperor moulting and a 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 volcanic 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 pendant everywhere, 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 or astern—­several minutes often elapse after the telegraph has been put over before there is any movement of the engines.