Canterbury and Westland. 201 



beaches rising one above the other around its shores. A small rounded 

 island rises in the south-western corner, above the surface of the 

 lake. The water is milky white, even during the most beautiful 

 weather, from fine glacier silt continually brought into the lake in 

 enormous masses. The view from this lake of the Southern Alps is 

 really magnificent, and I have no doubt that in years to come smiling 

 villas will be built here, where lovers of beautiful scenery, and those 

 who seek for health and recreation, will be able to pass delightful days. 

 At the northern end of the lake the river issues again, now running 

 between high banks and generally confined to one channel, bearing the 

 name of Pukaki. After a course of nine miles, the Pukaki joins the 

 Takapo outlet, and the united river bears the name of Waitaki. 

 There is only one ford over the Pukaki river, about six miles below its 

 exit from the lake ; it has a long horseshoe form, and leads over big 

 boulders. 



If we consider the length of its course, the Grodley river, the 

 eastern main source branch of the "Waitaki, is the principal one ; 

 the same neve fields which feed the Lyell glacier at the head of the 

 main Rakaia, supplying also the Grodley glacier, the principal feeder of 

 the river of the same name. This glacier, which has a length of 

 thirteen miles, is at the junction of the Grrey branch, the broadest of 

 the New Zealand glaciers, measuring nearly four miles across, and 

 forming one of the finest mers -de -glace imaginable. On its eastern 

 side, the Pitzgerald glacier nearly reaches it, only a lew hundred yards 

 intervening, its outlet running below the main glacier. The Classen 

 glacier is separated from the terminal face of the Godley glacier by a 

 short distance only, their terminal moraines being separated only 

 thirty or forty yards from each other, thus presenting a nearly unin- 

 terrupted terminal face of over three miles. The Classen glacier is 

 about eight miles long and nearly two miles broad, being fed by some 

 of the largest snow-fields in our Alps. After a nearly straight south- 

 by-east course of 22 miles, the united affluents of both glaciers, 

 under the name of the Grodley river, reach Lake Takapo. The average 

 breadth of the valley is about two miles, the river, like the Tasman 

 (and, in fact, all our large glacier rivers), meandering in countless 

 channels over it, changing its course with every heavy freshet. The 

 Grodley has also formed a very swampy delta at the head of Lake 

 Takapo. Six miles above the junction, on its eastern bank, the Grodley 

 receives the Macaulay, an important tributary, having two glacier 

 sources on the southern slopes of Mount Forbes, no other tributary 

 of any importance joining its course. 



