Geological Survey of Canterlury. 77 



Unfortunately, in spite of the precautions that had "been taken, the 

 rats had already demolished a part of them. We passed rather sleep- 

 less nights, for the place swarmed with rats, and we had great difficulty 

 in protecting our provisions from them. These auimals were really 

 quite a plague and left nothing uutouched ; I even found traces of their 

 sharp teeth in the shot. They ate holes with inconceiveable rapidity 

 in the flour bags, although we put them under our heads for pillows 

 and tried to protect them in other ways as well as we could. 



I calculated the height of this camping place, and found that it 

 attained already 2662 feet. The influence of the damp climate which 

 is peculiar to the west side of the Island, began already to be percep- 

 tible here. Up to this time we had been favoured with the most 

 beautiful weather, lovely days and nights, without a cloud in the deep 

 blue sky, but it now began to rain violently, and continued to do so 

 with very little intermission until we reached the West Coast. Several 

 parties of returning diggers passed during my stay here, most of 

 them ragged, starving, and without money, real pictures of misery. 

 They were nearly all novices who had never seen a goldfield before, 

 and after they had spent the few pounds they brought with them, and 

 had looked round in vain tor a new claim, they had been compelled to 

 return without having done anything. Labourers had easily found 

 work in the towns springing up so quickly on the Coast. 



Early on the morning of the 11th April, I set out to cross the pass. 

 A fine rain fell as I left the camp and rode through the luxuriant beech 

 forest, which however, after we had ascended 200 feet, began already to 

 be stunted, and almost disappeared beneath the cosmopolitan lichen 

 TJsnea baroata, which covers trees and boughs with its white beard. It 

 is worthy of observation that the boundary line of the trees is already 

 reached here at a height of 2800 feet, while on the sides of the 

 mountains bounding the Canterbury plains, it ascends to an altitude of 

 4600 feet. It is therefore evident that absolute he'ght alone does not 

 fix the forest boundary line, but that the upper forest boundary depends 

 upon the winter snow-line, which in the heart of the Southern Alps sinks 

 to 2100 feet, while near the sea it lies more than 2500 feet higher. The 

 road, which till now had been tolerably good, began to get almost im- 

 passable, in consequence of the great traffic on the narrow bridlepath, 

 and resembled a morass canal ; sharp stones, roots, and dead timber, 

 made progress very difficult ; the horses sank up to their knees and 

 could only work themselves out with difficulty. About 200 feet 

 below the saddle the gnarled forest wood ends, and a striking sub-alpine 



