DESCRIPTIVE SKETCH OF NEW ZEALAND. 



1167 



south, and Mount Haidinger to the north, are the most conspicuous. The bed of the 

 River Tasman, nearly as wide as the Lake itself, continues for twenty-three miles in a 

 straight line to the base of Mount Cook, here dividing into two branches, of which the 

 the eastern one is the broadest and most important. In this main branch, two miles 

 above the southern foot of Mount Cook, terminates the great Tasman Glacier, the largest 

 of all New Zealand glaciers. On both sides, the ranges present us not only with rochcs 



LAKE PUKAKI AM) MOUNT COOK. 



monlonnces, but also with terraces cut into the rock, sloping down at such an angle that 

 their fall can be accurately measured (from one and a half to four degrees)." 



The Lake is flanked by mountains, the Mary Range extending down one side, and 

 on the other the Ben Ohau, lofty and crested with snow, while between them, and 

 shutting in the prospect at the head of the Lake, the Southern Alps loom up far into 

 the heavens, culminating in Mount Cook, massive in its proportions, majestic in its 

 sheeted splendour of ice, and awe-inspiring in its tremendous height. Seen as the 

 setting sun is lavishing upon it a wealth of changeful iridescent hues, "it looks like an 

 enormous intensely-illuminated crimson flower held in Nature's white fingers for the sun's 

 dying blessing ; while the sky overhead wears a soft violet hue, blending away towards 

 the xenith, by the most delicate gradations, into zones of orange red and primrose 

 yellow." The immediate head of the Lake is a swamp formed by the waters of the 

 Tasman River which flows into it. In fact, both Pukaki and Tekapo are fed chiefly by 

 the Goclley, Cass and Tasman Glaciers, of which the first-named has been termed by 



