10 Historical Notes on the 



water. For several miles the mountains on both sides were so very 

 steep that no true glacier could be formed, and the same magnificent 

 cascades continued therefore to descend into the valley. "We had to 

 wade some of these streams, which, notwithstanding they reached 

 only to our hips, required all our strength to bear up against their 

 enormous pressure. But now a new and more serious impediment 

 presented itself in the shape of a large overhanging rock, along which 

 the river rushed in great fury ; we tried to round it, but the water 

 was too deep, so that we were compelled to climb it. Looking down 

 into the river below us we observed at another place a natural bridge 

 over the river, formed by the remains of a huge avalanche, into which 

 the water had excavated a cavern, and through which it was then 

 flowing. Although the summer was already declining, it had hitherto 

 resisted the sun's rays, which, it is true, could reach it only for a few 

 hours during the day. It being impossible to descend, we had to 

 climb up the face of the rocks higher and higher, till we were at last 

 some 1000 feet above the river, when a magnificent scene was 

 presented to us. Before us lay a broad valley running nearly north, 

 on its western side the gigantic, peaks of the central chain, on its 

 eastern side, running parallel with it, another high range, both uniting 

 six miles from our place of observation. Here a stern pyramid rose, 

 towering with its pointed peak above all its neighbours. From both 

 sides considerable glaciers descended, pouring their ice streams into 

 the valley ; those on the western side coming from a very large neve 

 lying at the base of this rocky giant. On both sides some fine 

 waterfalls were formed by the outlets of several glaciers of the second 

 order, of which one appearing to fall from a height of about one 

 thousand feet, dissolved in mist before it reached the valley. Scarcely 

 any sign of vegetation was here visible on the sides of the mountains, 

 all seemed ruin, desolation, and destruction. Descending to the 

 terminal face of the glacier I found it nearly 1500 feet broad, and 

 100 to 150 feet high, the glacier having for the first few miles only a 

 slight inclination. The altitude of the outlet I ascertained from 

 barometrical measurement to be 3909 feet above the level of the sea. 



The high pyramidical peak from which the lateral chain between the 

 Havelock and Clyde runs off in a south-east direction I named Mount 

 Tyndall. It was nearly evening before my necessary bearings and 

 observations were completed, and climbing back from the summit of the 

 ridge, a last view was obtained ; after which we descended to our camp. 

 For several days I was occupied with surveying and geological re- 



