Details of tJie Glacier\3 Surface. Ill 



the spurs projecting from it. The medial moraine looks black 

 from a distance, but. on traversing it, it was found to be com- 

 posed mainly of dark-green gabbro and serpentine. The debris 

 is scattered over the surface in a belt several rods wide ; but it is 

 not deep, as the ice can almost everywhere be seen between the 

 stones. Where the fragments of rock are most widely separated, 

 there are fine illustrations of the manner in which small, dark 

 stones absorb the heat of the sun and melt the ice beneath more 

 rapidly than the surrounding surface, sinking into the ice so as 

 to form little wells, several inches deep, filled with clear water. 

 Larger stones, which are not warmed through during a day's 

 sunshine, protect the ice beneath while the adjacent surface is 

 melted, and consequently become elevated on pillars or pedestals 

 of ice. The stones thus elevated are frequently large, and form 

 tables Avhich are nearly always inclined southward. In other 

 instances the ice over large areas, especially along the center of 

 the medial moraine, was covered with cones of fine, angular frag- 

 ments from a few inches to three or four feet in height. These 

 were not really piles of gravel, as they seemed, but consisted of 

 cones of ice, sheeted over with thin layers of small stones. The 

 secret of their formation, long since discovered on the glaciers of 

 Switzerland, is that the gravel is first concentrated in a hole in 

 the ice and, as the general surface melts away, acts like a large 

 stone and protects the ice beneath. It is raised on a pedestal, 

 but the gravel at the borders continually rolls down the sides and 

 a conical form is the result. 



Where we crossed the Hayclen glacier it is only about a mile 

 broad in a direct line ; but to traverse it by the circuitous route 

 rendered necessary by the character of its surface required about 

 three hours of hard tramjjing, even when unincumbered with 

 packs. From the center of the glacier a magnificent view may 

 be obtained of the snow-covered domes of Mount Cook, from 

 which rugged mountain ridges stretch southward like great arms 

 and enclose the white snow-field from which the glacier flows. 

 At an elevation of 2,500 feet the icy portion disappears beneath 

 the neve on which not a trace of debris is visible. All the higher 

 portions of the mountains are white as snow can make them, 

 except where the pinnacles and precipices are too steep to retain 

 a covering. 



On reaching the western side of the glacier we found a bare 

 space on the bordering cliffs, about a hundred feet high, which 



