Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/298

90 feet, and which terminates in Mount Cook, or Ahraraigi (Piercer of Heaven). The latter not only rises very remarkably above all the other snowy giants but is still more conspicuous, from the fact that at its western side also it is separated from Mount Stokes by a steep col, about 7000 to 8000 feet high, well visible from the Hooker and Mueller glaciers.

On the south-western side of this col the New Zealand Alps rise again to a great altitude, Mount Stokes being not much inferior to Mount Cook. They continue towards the south-west, under the name of the Moorhouse range, to Mount Holmes, where they divide into two branches, of which the western one, under the appellation of the Hooker and Gray ranges, continues to the southern bank of the river Haast, so named by order of the Provincial Government of Canterbury; whilst the eastern branch, under the names of the Ritter range. Mounts Ward and Brewster, strikes in a southerly direction to the remarkable break in the Southern Alps, which I discovered in January last, and by which I reached the west coast.

As this fissure or pass is perhaps unique in physical geography, I take the liberty to copy from an official report what I have said about it:—‘“Twenty miles above the mouth of the Makarora at Lake Wanaka, the river enters the fissure, coming from the east as a deep chasm of vertical cliffs from the central chain, and showing there the semi-opaque bluish colour which betrays a glacial origin. The rent still continues in the same direction, a tributary which I have called the ‘Fish-stream’ flowing through it and joining the Makarora. After travelling half a mile, we found it impossible to proceed up the bed of this stream, vertical cliffs rising abruptly from the edge of the water, which falls down over immense rocks. We were therefore obliged to ascend to a considerable altitude on its eastern bank, and to continue our journey through dense bush along the steep sides of the mountains.

“After travelling for 3 miles, partly over very rugged ground, we again met the ‘Fish-stream’ coming from the west, and still flowing in a deep and rocky channel; but observing still the opening before us, we again went forward in the same direction, and arrived in another mile on the bank of a very small watercourse, which we followed for about a mile.

“Observing that its banks consisted of débris, about 15 feet high, sloping as it seemed to me to the north, I ascended and found to my great satisfaction that the level of the swampy forest had really a slight fall in that direction; soon the small waterholes between the sphagnum (swamp-moss) increased, a small watercourse was formed, which ran in a northerly direction, and thus a most remarkable pass was found, which in a chain of such magnitude as the Southern Alps of New Zealand, and where no