GLACIERS OF THE TASMAN VALLEY. 591 



13. English opera (solo and chorus), " Come unto these yellow sands." 

 —Pitrcell, 1658 to 1695. 



14. National song, " Come if you dare." — Picrcell, 1658 to 1695. 



15. Cantata, " The night is calm and cloudless " (" Golden Legend"). — 

 Sir A. Sullivan. 



16. Cantata (Evening Hymn), " gladsome light" (" Golden Legend"). 

 —Sir A. Sullivan. 



The Glaciers of the Tasman Valley. 



A Lecture by G. E. Mannebing ; given at the Second 

 Evening Meeting, 16th January, 1891. 



The lecturer began by saying that he had enjoyed exceptional 

 opportunities during the last six years for observing the scenery 

 and phenomena of glaciers in the Southern Alps, which might 

 be said to extend from Arthur's Pass south-westward for a 

 hundred miles to Haast's Pass. The peaks were between 

 7,500ft. and 12,350ft. in height, and the snow-line was as low 

 as 5,000ft. ; Avhile the glaciers were in some cases larger than 

 those of Europe. On the west side of the Alps the glaciers 

 were sometimes within 600ft. or 700ft. of sea-level, while on 

 the eastern side the lowest was the Tasman, which was 

 2,319ft. above the sea. An interesting and peculiar feature of 

 our eastern ice-rivers was the extensive moraines. The lec- 

 turer drew an ideal picture of the scenery during the Great 

 Ice Age of New Zealand ; speculated on the causes of the 

 changes which had taken place, whether from climatic or 

 cosmic influences ; and pointed out the gradual movements 

 which had carved that portion of the country with which 

 he was dealing until it assumed its present aspect. He 

 then carried his audience to the head of the great Tasman 

 Glacier — eighteen miles long by nearly two miles wide, and 

 8,600ft. above the sea — and in vivid language described the 

 numerous peaks and tributary glaciers, especially the Hoch- 

 stetter, which he considered the most picturesque, being fed 

 by Mounts Cook and Tasman — the noblest peaks in Austral- 

 asia — from a plateau on whose flanks, at an altitude of 

 8,000ft., the ice descended in an indescribably grand frozen 

 cascade over a fall of some 4,000ft. in vertical height by a 

 width of a mile. The lecturer then devoted himself to a 

 detailed description of the features of the scenery, and dis- 

 cussed the subject of glacial motion ; and concluded by saying 

 that the New Zealand glaciers presented an unlimited virgin 

 field for the investigation of the various glacier phenomena. 

 There was the study of the cause and efl"ect of avalanches, the 

 various forms and types of glaciers, the sources of supply, the 



