438 notes on the mueller glacier, new zealand, 



Changes that have taken place in the Terminal Face. 



Twenty-five years ago the Mueller Glacier passed over the 

 Hooker River and abutted against the southern spur of Mount 

 Cook, being separated from the rocks only by a moraine. This 

 was its condition when "vasited by Sir J. Haast in 1862, and by 

 Mr. Sealy in 1867, as shown in the photograph accompanying 

 Dr. Haast's report on the Geology of Canterbury and Westland. 

 In this report he says that the Hooker River found its way below 

 the Mueller Glacier some 150 yards from the spur of Mount Cook, 

 and issued with the outlet of the latter from a magnificent ice 

 vault. " For -nore than 100 yards below it the ice forms perpen- 

 dicular walls on both sides about 100 feet high, often washed out 

 into bold forms resembling turrets, minarets, or gigantic statues, 

 and sometimes crowned with enormous erratic blocks" (I.e. p. 33). 

 At this time sheep belonging to the Birch-hill Station, were 

 annually driven over the glacier on to the slopes of Mount Cook. 

 But the Hooker river, flowing under the ice, gradually melted it 

 and the end of the glacier gave way. A heavy flood, which 

 occurred in 1868, brought down large quantities of ice, and the 

 last ice-bridge broke down in 1878, since when it has not been 

 possible to drive sheep on to Mount Cook. 



At the end of 1884, when Mr. Huddleston arrived and built the 

 Hermitage, the Hooker River skirted the whole breadth of the 

 glacier, but in March 188-5, it again cut its way under the northern 

 corner of the glacier. It entered by an ice-cave just below the 

 north lateral moraine of the Mueller, and came out again by 

 another cave about two-thirds of the way across the face. During 

 1887, this long ice cavern was constantly falling in, but the grand 

 collapse was in Jan. 1888, when the whole of the ice over the 

 Hooker disappeared, and the river once more skirted the terminal 

 face of the glacier. The ice-cave out of which the Hooker flowed 

 in 1886 still exists. At present the terminal face of the glacier is 

 250 to 300 yards from the moraine on Mount Cook spur, against 

 which it abutted in 18G7. 



