Green — A Journey among the New Zealand Glaciers. 643 



of foot-hills have to be ascended and upland valleys traversed before 

 the higher ranges can be reached. In the province of Canterbury, 

 where the moiintains attain their greatest height in Mount Cook or 

 Ao-Eangi, as it is called in the Maori tongue, these features are most 

 distinctly observable, the Canterbury plains followed by the Mac- 

 kenzie plains extending up to the very ice, and so flat that Dr. Haast 

 said he would undertake to drive a buggy the whole way from Christ- 

 church to the foot of the Tasman glaciers. We tried it with an 

 express waggon and three horses, and nearly accomplished it. The 

 country was level enough, but the boulders as we drew near to the 

 glaciers proved a little too much for a wheeled vehicle, and our waggon 

 ended its days by being capsized in the Tasman river. 



These New Zealand rivers have been a source of much difficulty 

 to colonial development. They are so swift and erratic in their courses 

 that fords are dangerous and bridges difficult to construct. Once the 

 rivers leave the mountains there is nothing to keep them to one chan- 

 nel, as the plains, being composed of loose boulders and sand, are easily 

 eaten away by the swift streams swelled in summer by the melting of 

 the snow. A river bed is therefore a broad sheet of gravel through 

 which a number of small streams wander and change day by day — 

 what was a main channel one day being quite a secondary stream in 

 the lapse of a week or so. Much time was often spent in crossing one 

 river with the delays of searching for fords ; but now that railways 

 run north and south the problem has been solved on the most important 

 route by bridges, some nearly a mile in length. In the province of 

 Otago rich woods extend right across the island to the east coast, 

 giving place in many districts, however, to immense plains covered 

 with tussock grass and Spaniard or sword grass, except where the 

 farmer has come and adorned the landscape with waving fields of 

 wheat. Farther north the great snowy chain seems to form a com- 

 plete barrier to the moisture and vegetation of the west: the plains, 

 hills, and valleys are all bare, as if shaven, and of the one uniform 

 brownish-yellow hue. Clumps of flax [Phormium tenax) and isolated 

 cabbage trees {Cordyline australis) make the desolation appear more 

 desolate. The rain-fall is but 25 inches. The air is clear, bright, 

 and exhilarating, and when we do penetrate into the furthest recesses 

 of the mountains, to the very brink of the glaciers, we at last come to 

 a rank vegetation brought into existence by the rains condensed by 

 the cold ice peaks. Acclimatization has produced wonderful results 

 in New Zealand. On the great grassy plains, where the moa once 

 stalked majestically, the skylark is now the commonest of birds, the 

 sparrow threatens to become a plague, as the rabbit has done, and 

 English weeds seem determined to establish themselves and attain to 

 a fertility unexampled at home. Clouds of thistle-down fill the air, 

 and sorrel usurps the ground prepared for oats and wheat. Amongst 

 other interesting points brought out by this invasion of the vegetable 

 kingdom, one at least is worthy of special notice — the failure of red 

 clover, while white clover thrives amazingly. In the neighbouring 



R. I. A. PROC, SER. II. VOL. Ill, SCIENCE. 3 M 



