46 



Malte Brun, Mount de la Beche, and several others in the Mount Cook 

 group, all over 10,000 ft. Farther north are Mount Adams, Mount 

 Lambert, Mount Evans (8,612 ft.), Mount Whitcombe (8,656ft.), and 

 others over 8,000 ft. high. Still farther north the alpine range is 

 under 7,000 ft. in height, but several mountains in the Spenser Range 

 reach heights of over 7,000 ft., the highest being Mount Franklin, 

 7,571 ft. Some of the branch ranges in Canterbury reach heights of 

 8,000 ft., and, in the case of Mount Arrowsmith (9,171 ft.), over a 

 thousand feet more. 



Owing to the heavy snowfall, the glaciers of the Southern Alps, 

 in proportion to the heights of the mountains and the size of the 

 snowfields, are unusually large, and, moreover, descend to low levels. 

 Thus on the eastern side the Tasman, Mueller, and Hooker glaciers 

 have their terminal faces at 2,354 ft., 2 >55 ft-. an d 2,880 ft. above 

 sea-level. On the western side the Fox Glacier descends to 620 ft., 

 and the Franz Josef, as elsewhere described under a special heading, 

 to 692 ft. above sea-level. 



P. G. MORGAN. 



GLACIERS ; AND GLACIATION IN THE MOUNT COOK 



DISTRICT. 



The Hermitage Hotel, beautifully situated in the Hooker Valley, 

 close to the terminal moraine of the Mueller Glacier (fig. 20), and 

 almost at the base of Mount Cook itself, is approached by a good 

 road, and is thus within an easy day's journey of Timaru by service 

 motor-cars. Here, in the very heart of the Southern Alps, the visitor 

 may, without leaving the hotel, hear the boom of avalanches and 

 enjoy unrivalled mountain scenery. Neve-fields and hanging glaciers 

 are all around, and the evening glow on the snow-capped summit 

 of Mount Cook, as seen from the Hermitage, is a sight no traveller 

 visiting New Zealand should miss. 



A walk up the Hooker Valley by the side of the glacier to the 

 Hooker Hut affords a fine view of Mount Cook at close quarters, 

 and of the glaciated trough of the Hooker Valley, with hanging 

 tributary valleys and truncated spurs. The surface of the Hooker 

 Glacier, as in the case of all the glaciers on the eastern side of the 

 main divide of the Southern Alps, is heavily covered with moraine. 

 The track to the Hooker Hut passes along a ridge of stranded lateral 

 moraine for a considerable distance. 



A walk or ride of several hours from the Hermitage brings one 

 to the Ball Hut, just below the junction of the Ball and Tasman 

 glaciers, and situated between the rocky wall of the Tasman Valley 

 and a high ridge of stranded lateral moraine bordering the great 

 Tasman Glacier. From this point a short walk over the ice of the 

 Tasman Glacier (clear of moraine from this to the head, excepting 

 medial ridges) brings into view the magnificent ice-fall of the Hoch- 

 stetter Glacier, which descends from Mount Cook. It is necessary 

 to spend a night at the Ball Hut. 



This excursion may be extended up the Tasman Valley as far as 

 the Malte Brun Hut, which is reached by walking about eight miles 



