GrEEEX — A Journey among the Neic Zealand Glaciers. 651 



almost unavoidable. On this day we spent some time sounding cre- 

 vasses. Into one moulin I lowered a stone witli 320 feet of cord, but 

 as the cord was found to have tangled, the observation could not be 

 relied on. We then timed the fall of large stones, and on several occa- 

 sions measured 5" by my watch before the first crash was heard, giving 

 a depth of 300 feet, and then as a series of bangs followed for as long 

 again, these crevasses must at the lowest computation be 500 feet deep. 



The glacier (Plate XVIII.) close to our camp, which I have named 

 the Ball glacier, after John Ball, who may be looked upon as one of the 

 fathers of Alpine exploration, had some points of special interest. Plow- 

 ing from the S.W., it met the current of the main glacier coming from 

 the north, and failing to stem it, was pushed aside down the valley, its 

 lower portion thus making an acute angle with its former course. As 

 our tent was in the angle, I had abundant opportunity for watching its 

 great slopes of ice which stood up high above the moraine, and by ob- 

 servation I found the ice moved past at the rate of one foot per day. 

 At one point the pressure had been sufficient to push down the moraine 

 as a great wall might have been tumbled over, while immediately in 

 front of our camp the glacier was building up the rampart by a con- 

 stant dropping of angular stones. Even in the stillness of night these 

 sounds evidence its icy life, and one night we heard a bang as of a 

 cannon shot when some new crevasses sprang into existence. 



The blocks of the moraine were all either sandstones or slates of the 

 newer palaeozoic formation, of which Mount Cook and all this range is 

 competed, with occasional fragments of quartz, in which we kept a 

 bright look out for gold and blocks of a kind of volcanic breccia, which, 

 according to Professor V. Ball, who kindly examined a piece which I 

 brought home, consists of fragments of pyroxene and felspar, the latter 

 being much decomposed, and some free silica. 



Our first attempt to scale Mount Cook by the southern arete was 

 foiled by meeting a series of crags of the above-named slates, which 

 owing to their rotten condition we could not climb. Our second attack 

 ended in the face of a great sandstone cliff of the eastern spur. Our 

 third and successful attempt was made for the greater part by snow 

 and ice, and of the ascent I shall now give a few details. Immediately 

 to the north of Mount Cook, Mount Tasman raises its glacier-clad peak, 

 and fi'om the basin between these two mountains descends, in a grand 

 ice-fall, the Hochstetter glacier. This glacier forms one of the most 

 splendid sights in the Southern Alps. Its chaos of seracs tinted with 

 every icy hue, from beryl blue to silvery white, is of course quite 

 inaccessible, as every moment the ice blocks topple over with loud 

 boomings and crashes, and descend from level to level in clouds of ice 

 dust. ^0 speck of moraine pollutes its surface though a medial moraine 

 appeared lower down, showing that the ice-fall is really a junction of 

 two glaciers. To reach the basin or plateau above the Hochstetter 

 ice-fall was now our object, so on the 1st of March we started at day- 

 break, with rugs for a bivouac and provisions for three days, and after 

 crossing the Mount Cook glacier, and the Hochstetter glacier below 



E. I. A. PROC, SER. II. VOL. Ill — SCIEN'CE. 3 N 



