Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/329

Rh sea, lake, and river, richly wooded height, and grassy plain, from one vantage-ground, pleasure-seekers yearly repair in increasing numbers to climb, ramble, glissade, and ski. New Zealand's Alps are more than three hundred miles long, but their name applies more particularly to their highest portion, in the west central part of the South Island. The loftiest peaks are in the vicinity of Mount Cook (12,349 feet), the "Aorangi the Cloud Piercer" of the Maoris, more than two hundred and fifty miles from Cook Strait, the northern terminal of the chain. Until, as geologists believe, the chain was submerged by sinking, it evidently extended to the North Island. It is equally probable that this subsidence disconnected the main divide of the North Island, and that the high Kaikouras, in the northeastern part of the South Island, were a part of this divide.

The Southern Alpine Range consists chiefly of overturned folds, and judging by its enormous moraines it evidently was higher ages ago. These moraines are much higher than those of the European Alps. On this point. Professor James Park says that "the younger Pleistocene valley moraines of Switzerland are small compared with the vast piles of glacial débris at Pukaki and Tekapo, in the Mount Cook area."

In height the Southern Alps are excelled by the Swiss Alps; but they have a large number of peaks approximating, or more than, ten thousand feet in height, all within a few miles of Aorangi.