200 Physical Geography of 



its terminal face upwards, the outlet of another large glacier flows along 

 its eastern side. This second, the Murchison glacier, lies in a valley 

 one mile and a quarter broad, but it does not reach the Tasman glacier, 

 its terminal face being situated two miles from it; and we may attri- 

 bute the fact that it melts before reaching the other, to the circumstance 

 that it is more exposed to the sun, and is not like the Tasman glacier, 

 entirely covered with enormous moraines in its lower portion. The outlet 

 from the Murchison glacier, after flowing for several miles along the 

 eastern side of the great Tasman glacier, was, in 1862, when I dis- 

 covered them, joined by the outlet of the latter, issuing from a glacier 

 cave on its eastern edge. On my second visit, in 1870, 1 found that 

 the Tasman river now issued from two glacier caves, of which one wa3 

 in the old spot, whilst a second one had been formed in the centre of 

 the terminal face. The united outlet forms at once a large torrent, 

 always of a dirty yellow colour, thick with suspended matter, appear- 

 ing to me to have about the same quantity of water as the "Waimakariri 

 has in the Canterbury plains. After a course of a few miles, it is 

 joined by the Hooker river, the united outlet of the Hooker and 

 Mueller glaciers, of which the former, eight miles long and one mile 

 broad, having a north and south direction, brings down the ice masses 

 from the southern slopes of Mount Cook, the eastern side of Mount 

 Stokes, and the northern portion of the Moorhouse range. The 

 Mueller glacier, six miles long and one mile broad, has a general south- 

 west and north-east direction, and is fed from the neve fields of the 

 south-eastern slopes of the Moorhouse, and the western slopes of the 

 Sealy range. After a long continuance of fine weather, this outlet is 

 not so turbid as that of the principal glacier, and can be crossed without 

 difficulty on horseback, and even on foot, although the boulders in its 

 bed are generally large. The united river runs in a straight valley, 

 having a general breadth of three miles for twenty-one miles, or 

 twenty-four miles from the terminal face of the Tasman glacier, before 

 it enters Lake Pukaki, the last five miles forming a delta of a very 

 swampy character, and impassable by man or beast. Higher up, the 

 river runs in a number of shallow channels, anastomosing continually, 

 of which I counted as many as thirty in crossing. Before reaching 

 the lake, a number of smaller tributaries join it from both sides, of 

 which the River Jollie is the most important. Lake Pukaki is nine 

 miles long and four miles broad. It is a fine sheet of water, surrounded 

 by morainic accumulations, forming banks often 250 feet high. Here 

 and there some roohes moutonnees appear amongst them, and the former 

 higher level of the lake can easily be traced by the numerous old 



