Wellington Philosophical Society. 433 



Eleventh Meeting. 9th October, 1872. 



Dr. Hector, F.R.S., President, in the chair. 



1. The Hon. W. Fox gave an account of his travels on the West Coast of 

 the South Island. A large number of sketches illustrative of the scenery 

 which Mr. Fox had witnessed during his travels in Switzerland, as well as on 

 the West Coast, were exhibited on the walls of the building, and these, by the 

 aid of the very fine light, showed to considerable advantage, and were admired 

 as much for the grandeur of the scenery depicted as for the excellence of the 

 sketching. The author made no attempt to treat the subject of glaciers in a 

 scientific manner, but merely from what might be termed a picturesque point 

 of view. A glacier may be described as a mass of ice occujDying a deep gorge 

 in the mountains, resembling the letter TJ in shape, its dimensions being 

 many hundred feet in thickness, and from one to fifty miles long. This mass 

 of ice does not remain, as might be supposed by Uinscientific observers, in a 

 state of repose, but is in a constant state of forward progression. The rate 

 of advance had, however, long been a subject of dispute, and various theories 

 were propounded on the subject, the first being that the cause of motion is 

 due to gravity and dilatation — from the melted waters pouring into the 

 rents and crevices upon the ice becoming frozen and by expansion moving the 

 mass forward. A more satisfactory theory, however, has been promulgated, 

 which is that the great body attains the forward motion on account of its 

 viscidity, the ice not being, as is generally supposed, a hard mass, but rather 

 of a flowing or lava-like consistency, which the ladies of the auditory might 

 better understand by drawing upon the homely article " dough " for com- 

 parison. This theory would better account for the fact that in glacier vallies 

 it was often found that they had narrow mouths, wide above and narrow at 

 the bottom, which overcame the difficulty of explaining how what was 

 generally supposed to be a hard mass obtained egress through the mouth. 

 Mr. Fox then explained the limitation of the glacier formation upwards, and 

 the strange conjuncture of the neve with the lower portion, where the snow 

 assumes a frosted condition, or, as the Germans call it, firner. The extraor- 

 dinary depth of the crevasses and the danger to travellers formed a point in the 

 subject which was explained in an interesting manner, Mr. Fox stating that 

 the existence of these crevasses explained how the glacier vallies became the 

 sources of rivers, the melting of the ice and snow percolating through the 

 great body collecting in the bottom of the valley, and forming a tunnel before 

 escaping into the open day. The causes and origination of moraines was the 

 next point made clear, after which Mr. Fox alluded to the curious circum- 

 stance of the glaciers at their termini advancing and retiring at particular 

 seasons, which accounted for the appearance of moraine hills at considerable 



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