Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/300

92 series of remarkable lakes following direction of the large valleys. It would lead me too far, were I to enter at full length into the causes of their formation, which prove, by the enormous moraines by which they are surrounded or to express it still better dammed up, to be of glacial origin; and I think that nowhere in the temperate zones such clear signs of the glaciation of a large district, in the postpliocene period, are to be met with as in the New Zealand Alps.

The moraines are as clearly defined, and the angles of the large blocks of which they are composed as sharp and fresh as if they had only been deposited during the last few years, and we can easily follow the large and generally straight shingle-river valleys above them, which are sometimes 3 miles broad, and have an average fall of 40 to 50 feet in the mile, till we arrive at the present glaciers, of which the principal still have often an average breadth of 1 mile at their terminal face, and present us with most remarkable phenomena. No link is missing to show us that the formation of these magnificent Alpine lakes is due to the former extension of the present glaciers, which now form the feeders of these lakes, and we can follow the former lateral moraines to the altitude, where, in the glacial period, an uniform sheet of ice covered these mountain masses, which during a period of great submergence remained alone elevated above the sea.

It is evident that a mountain chain of such altitude, and covered with such enormous masses of perpetual snow, must give rise to extensive glaciers; the more so as the insular climate of New Zealand is of a very moist nature, almost every wind bringing rain, or in higher altitudes snow, in its Alpine regions.

Amongst the glaciers, the great Tasman glacier is the most important, its length being 12 miles, whilst even at its terminal face its breadth is 1 mile. It is the glacier which reaches lowest in New Zealand, as its extremity lies only 2772 feet above the level of the sea. The terminal face is easily accessible, even for horsemen, when once they have fairly come into the river-bed above the delta swamps, which, for about 6 miles above its entrance into the lake, fill its whole valley.

It was with great difficulty, when travelling up it, that I found my way through the old lateral moraines, lying on the eastern side above the drift formation; the passage being barred by enormous masses of huge blocks, over which it was difficult even to lead a horse. For several miles upwards the great Tasman glacier is entirely covered by moraines of great depth. No visible stream flows from its terminal face, all the water