Page:The journal of the Royal Geographic Society of London. Volume 34, 1864. (IA s572id13663720).pdf/301

Rh disappearing instantly between the great masses of large boulders of its terminal moraines. Only at one spot, in the centre of the terminal face, is the ice visible; but we find above it, on the glacier, a channel where, in weather favourable to the melting of snow or during heavy rainfalls, a great body of water flows, with which, below the terminal face, a large channel in the river-bed, usually dry, corresponds.

The main body of the Tasman River finds its exit on the eastern side of the glacier, about 200 yards above its terminal face, from a number of caves and fissures, joining the large outlet from the Murchison glacier, which had already washed its eastern side for more than 2 miles. The river meanders through its valley, here 2 miles broad, in at least 20 channels; it has a great body of water, but in fine weather is easily transitable on horseback by any one having knowledge sufficient to select the fords.

To its junction with the Hochstetter glacier, descending in a deep valley between Mount Cook and Mount Haidinger, this glacier (the great Tasman) has only lateral moraines, but after the junction a large medial moraine is formed which very soon covers the whole glacier; only here and there large hollows filled by pools of water of a deep blue colour, and often of large extent, being 200 to 250 feet deep, betray in their perpendicular walls the existence of ice. An interesting feature is here revealed, showing that the glacier as soon as it finds an opportunity to expand itself, does so, by pressing its masses into the broad valley of the Murchison glacier, the terminal face of which lies about 1 mile distant from the lateral edge of the Tasman glacier, which afterwards is, as before stated, continually washed by the outlet of the smaller one.

For 3 miles from its terminal face upwards, the outlet of the Murchison glacier flows along the eastern side of the Tasman. This lies in a valley,1 mile broad; but it does not reach the Tasman, its terminal face lying 2 miles from it; and we may attribute the fact that it melts before it reaches the other, to the circumstance that it is more exposed to the sun, and that it is not like the Tasman glacier entirely covered with enormous moraines. But appearances show very clearly that the Murchison advances rapidly towards the Tasman glacier. In fine weather the outlet of the former runs on the eastern side of its broad shingle valley; but there is every proof that in heavy freshes the whole valley is entirely covered by the rushing waters of the Murchison outlet, which must contribute in no small degree to destroy the main glacier.

Two other glaciers of large extent are the Classen and Godley glaciers. The former descends from the nucleus of mountains which I have called Mount Elie de Beaumont, whilst the last-mentioned