Racovitza’s shipboard diary

1. Collapsed basin forms a lake under the glacier into which comes the runoff from the glacial stream and limited by the sharp edges.
2. Sheepback rocks from the ancient extension of the glacier with lateral moraines.
3. Bay closed by the frontal moraines.
4. Frontal moraines form little elongated islands, accumulations of large blocks covered in beeches.

1. The adult males are darker than the females. They are light brown, the very elderly have lots of very light hairs that make them seem gray, especially in the mane.
2. The females and the young of both sexes of more than a year are light yellow-brown, dirty blond. Many are spotted with darker brown.
3. The newborns are wholly black except on their bellies and their snouts where they tend towards brown.

1. The gray, parallel, undulating stripes covering the surface of (a), that is to say the surface of the ice sheet itself, as one can be convinced following the form and appearance of the fragment. These are probably the lines of the outcroppings of the different layers of snow. 
2. The holes (b) which are located in the excavated region, quite deep and containing debris of yellow-reddish ice. 

1. Due to the disaggregation of rocks which supplied sand and clay.
2. Due to green algae which gave it, even from afar, a frog green color.
3. Guano, mostly from penguins. Red, white, and yellow; mostly red.

1. At the highest level we found a dark green ulvoid algae.
2. Lower down, a filamentous algae which completely covered the surfaces of the rocks. The limit between these two algae was very clear. The second zone sits approximately 50 m from the low tide mark above it.
3. A bit above the low tide level begin calcareous pink algaes and a red algae which certainly represents the laminaria here. 

1. A sort of brown-red coating [that] resembled mushrooms but could be of a mineral nature.
2. A green freshwater algae (?), since we mostly found it in the rivulets and the runoff water, [it] resembled ulvae like fronds. It was completely desiccated in the dry spots.
3. A shriveled little gray lichen.

1. Streaks and patches of green, often considerable (1 hectare). Sometimes on the surface, most often where the edge of the snow meets the rock because there’s always fonts of runoff there and the rock retains heat.
2. Patches of hot pink (penguin guano!)

1. A fleshy yellow-green lichen growing all over the ledges jutting out in big plaques.
2. A fleshy yellow-green lichen (maybe the same) in the very humid spots, the [above] is found only in dry spots. The difference in coloration might be due to a predominance of green algae ([which] likes the humidity) in the lichen association.
3. An orange lichen in plates, very little thickness, descending even lower as a plane. Very dry.
4. A gray-green lichen with a black top, branches (reindeer lichen) forming large continuous carpets. The branches were very thin.
5. A gray-green lichen with foliaceous branches forming tufts in the slits in the rocks. The two dry spots.
6. Lichen in a very pale yellow crust, not very widespread, dry spots.
7. Lichen encrusted in gray. Dry spots.
8. Lichen encrusted in black. Dry spots. These last two could maybe be the same or even their dead forms.
9. In the very humid, clay-filled slits, green mosses forming balls on the plateau. 

1. Lichen encrusted in gray.
2. Leafy green algae with an ulvaceus appearance, totally dry, distributed along the surface following the cracks. 

1. Penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica), several of them on the rocks below like the other time. They can scratch their heads very well with their hind paws. Also jump very well; up and down, both feet together, using their wings as balancers. Stretching and lowering their wings to the rear, elongating the neck upwards and yawning widely. Whenever another one approaches their spot, they give a sort of hiss, a “ch, ch, ch,” bristle up their neck feathers, and swing their necks from right to left. They came up alongside us, curious to see what we were doing.
2. Pseudo-albatrosses all over the surrounding seas in large flocks. 
3. Brown Larus, looming on the rocks or flying around us.
4. Larus dominicanus, very numerous and noisy, around us and the island. All nesting high up in the cliff face, flat nests made of feathers, algae, mosses, all cemented by the youngs’ droppings and surrounded by mollusks. The young are already large, with brown feathers and not much down. They can’t fly yet, but defend themselves by biting. Their color harmonizes very well with the rocks. Their parents flew around us crying shrilly. The nests are situated on little rocky platforms. At the bottom I saw a Larus of this species with a broken wing. Two little ones per nest.
5. Cormorants came only to sit for a while on a predetermined spot on the rocks already completely covered in their white droppings.
6. Chionis alba, very familiar, eating the filamentous algaes from the second zone which they graze by holding their beaks to the side as if scraping the rocks. Nesting in small caves, the nest is placed at the entrance, but the young can take refuge in the back of the miniature excavation. 2 little ones per nest, gray brown. The parents, male and female, do not leave them, but take them out of reach whenever we appear. 
7. Tern with a black head. Must also nest here on the cliff, but I couldn’t see their nests. These are the very small birds, very courageous, who valiantly attack all the other birds who seem to fear them; even the brown Larus flees in front of them.