Hoosh was cooked and about to be served, when Stillwell, who was in charge of the primus, collapsed. Close immediately seized an ice-axe, stood up, thrust its point through the choked entrance, and fell down, overcome. Laseron became powerless at the same time. An hour and a half later--so it was reckoned--the party revived and cleared the opening. The hole made by the ice-axe had been sufficient to save their lives. For a day they were too weak and exhausted to travel, so the tent was pitched and the night spent outside the Cave. On December 11 they steered due south for a while and then eastward for three days to Madigan Nunatak; delayed for twenty-four hours by a blizzard. 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.