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in reality ai-e the fragments of great rock slips that have been hurled, by the 

 action of frost, from the adjacent mountain steep. 



It is difficult to realise, without actual observation, the activity of the 

 disintegrating forces, and the vast amount of matter that the mountains are 

 denuded of even in the course of one year. The phrase " everlasting hills " is 

 really a misnomer, for the forces now unceasingly at work will level the 

 highest mountains and fill up the deepest lakes. Frost is the great disin- 

 tegrator. The melting of the snows, and the moisture from the clouds, 

 penetrate the rocks during the day ; the freezing at night splits them, and the 

 result is long streams of angular fragments from the peaks, and talus heaps 

 around the bases of the jDrecipices. In the higher snow fields, the avalanche, 

 with the noise of thunder, hurls its snow and ice masses into the valley below 

 — there to be kneaded into a glacier, or to rush on as a torrent or succession 

 of cascades. The traveller, in making his first acquaintance with such moun- 

 tains as the Southern Alps, is apt to be more or less bewildered and appalled 

 with the din and potency of forces at work, and with the vast dimensions of 

 the surrounding scene. 



The climate of the Lake District, as indeed the whole of the island, is 

 determined by the Southern Alps. They lie directly athwart the track of the 

 equatorial winds, and their cool tops condense the vapours with which these 

 winds are so highly charged, and hence the almost tropical rains of the West 

 Coast. These high mountains so effectively drain the winds, that there is 

 comparatively little left for the interior of the country, and but for the 

 secondary ranges, such as the Dunstan and Hawkdun Mountains, conserving 

 what does fall in the form of snow, the interior plains and valleys, not on the 

 banks of lake-fed rivers, would for a poi'tion of each year be waterless. 



Although the Otago portion of the Southern Alps is from 6000 to 10,000 

 feet high, yet there are numerous saddles in them much lower, from which the 

 valleys run to the West Coast on the one side, and to the lakes on the other. 

 The valleys on the lakes' sides act as funnels, down which the winds blow and 

 discharge their moisture. The efiect of the discharge is seen in the forests 

 which are invariably found in these valleys. In several cases, where the saddle 

 of the dividing range does not exceed 3500 feet above sea level, the forest is 

 continuous from the west to the east side of the mountains. Thus, beginning 

 at Martin's Bay and following up the HoUyford Yalley to the Eglinton Pass, 

 thence to the Te Anau Lake, and then down the Waiau Yalley to the ocean, 

 there is a continuous belt of forest, 160 miles in length, and, with its 

 ramifications, covering upwards of a thousand sqiiare miles. It is worthy of 

 remark, that the forests of Otago are all to be found within the districts 

 enjoying a moist climate. Thus, on the west side of the province there is the 

 country between the West Coast and the lakes ; on the east side there is the 

 margin of 30 or 35 miles along the coast over which the south-westers usually 



