FIJI-NEW ZEALAND EXPEDITION 329 
trees the whole setting seems framed and stereoscopic, while 
from a tiny placid pool the picture is reflected as from a mirror. 
A carpet of ferns heavy with hoar-frost lines the path. In addi- 
tion to the large species noted in the Ferguson bush are small 
umbrella and kidney ferns and there is a wealth of lycopods, 
mosses, and epiphytes everywhere. A clump of tree ferns stands 
within a mile of the ice, and horses and sheep find excellent 
grazing within, a stone’s throw of the fresh terminal moraine. 
Abundant vegetation close to a glacier is contrary to the general 
opinion that glaciers occupy only cold and barren areas. Fifty- 
eight species of ferns, an azolla, and eight species of lyeopods 
have been listed from the immediate vicinity of this glacier. 
Of the entire flora consisting of two hundred and eighty-eight 
species twenty-six of them, according to Cockayne, are alpine or 
semi-alpine in character—a remarkable condition in view of the 
low elevation. 
The ice-front is steep and faces the north; in places it is verti- 
eal or overhanging and fully two hundred feet in height. The 
elevation of the lowest ice exposed is 692 feet above sea level. 
The glacier originates in a great snowfield or series of snow- 
fields among which are Geikie, Davis, Salisbury, and Chamber- 
lin Snowfields, ranging from seven to eight thousand feet in 
elevation. The glacier proper has a length of seven and one- 
half to eight miles. It thus has a fall of close to one thousand 
feet per mile. The snowfields are dotted with numerous nuna- 
taks and the precipitation in the snowfield area is in the neigh- 
borhood of about one hundred and twenty inches annually. 
From a great cave in the ice-front issues a swift stream, the 
head waters of the Waiho. The cave at the time of our visit 
was some thirty feet in height and extended back for about an 
equal distance. Considerable water trickled from its roof and 
the ice was quite leaky toward midday. In places there are 
great volumes of debris along the ice-front ranging from rock 
flour to boulders ten. or fifteen feet in diameter. The pebbles 
and boulders are chiefly schists with a few pieces of slate and 
greenstone. All the pieces are flat, their shapes being due more 
to the structure of the rock than to wear by the ice. We looked 
in vain for glacially striated pebbles but scratches were common 
on the roches moutonnées at the foot of the ice cliff. The largest 
of these knobs, Sentinel Rock, towers quite to the top of the ice 
eliff. Strauchon Rock and Barron Rock are other prominent ice- 
