Canterbury and Westland. 199 



lakes on both sides of the Southern Alps, and the enormous moraines 

 surrounding them, which mark clearly the latest extension of the post- 

 pliocene glaciers. 



Discussions such as those which were going on some years ago between 

 Professor Dove, of Berlin, and some of the principal scientific men of 

 Switzerland, would have been much simplified had those gentlemen been 

 acquainted with all the characteristic features of our nor'westers, being 

 in every respect identical with the phenomena described by Professor 

 Dove, with whose writings I am best acquainted, and with whose con- 

 clusions I entirely concur, as being the characteristics of the fohn. In 

 fact, his description of the fohn from its first setting in on the Italian 

 side of the European Alps, its crossing and effects on the Swiss side 

 is such, that if we change the word Italian for western, and Swiss for 

 eastern side, every inhabitant of this island who has travelled across it 

 would consider it a faithful description of our nor'westers as travelling 

 from coast to coast. However, I may point out that occasionally our 

 nor'westers do not bring rain with them when crossing the height of 

 land, having descended before they reached the Southern Alps, thus 

 becoming deprived of the principal portion of their moisture on the sea 

 or on the low lands lying at the western foot of the ranges. When 

 these winds pass across the snow-fields of the Southern Alps, the 

 cumulus clouds creeping up, disappear as by enchantment, and the sky 

 remains of a deep blue colour, but the wind sweeping down the valleys 

 is very hot, and the rising of the glacier torrents shows at once its 

 effect. A theory tracing them to the interior of Australia would be 

 difficult to prove. 



The Waitaki. 



Taking the rivers according to their volume, and the extent of the 

 hydrographic basins they drain, the Waitaki, as previously pointed out, 

 is the most important. The sources of this river rise in those regions 

 of the Southern Alps, which are not only the highest, but where also 

 snow-fields of the largest extent exist, from which a number of huge 

 glaciers descend to lower regions. Amongst them, the great Tasman 

 glacier, the main source of the Waitaki, is the most important, its 

 length being 18 miles, whilst at its terminal face its breadth is 

 still one mile and three-quarters ; it is the glacier that readies lowest in 

 New Zealand on the eastern side of the Alps, as its lower extremity 

 stands only 2456 feet above the level of the sea. For three miles from 



