THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
VoL. x. — JULY, 1876. — No. 7. 
LAKE WAKATIPU, NEW ZEALAND. 
BY I. C. RUSSELL. i 
J AKE Wakatipu is remarkable not only for the grandeur of 
its scenery, which some travelers assert is equal to that of 
Switzerland, but also for the many interesting features in its 
physical geology. 
ake Wakatipu is situated about a hundred miles from the 
southern end of the South Island of New Zealand, among the 
Picturesque mountains of the Southern Alps. Its esthetic feat- 
ures we will not attempt to describe ; a conception of its varying 
Scenes, some of which are as wild and grand as others are soft 
and beautiful, can be conveyed only by the brush of the artist ; 
We endeavor merely to tell the story of their origin. 
The lake is of a sigmoidal shape, about seventy miles long, and 
from one to three broad. Its waters, which are very clear and 
cold, have been sounded to the extraordinary depth of fourteen 
hundred feet. The surface of the lake being about one thousand 
feet above the sea, its bottom, therefore, is four hundred feet 
lower than the surface of the ocean. On either side of the lake, 
and thoughout its whole extent, the mountains rise in a contin- 
uous series of very rugged peaks to a height of from five thou- 
sand to seven thousand five hundred feet, while Mt. Earnslaw, 
which forms the head of the valley, attains an elevation of 9165 
feet, lts top white with perpetual snow, and its sides scored by 
descending glaciers, 
The valley of Lake Wakatipu extends southward beyond the 
ob of the lake for a distance’of fifty or sixty ae 
ally Spreads out. into the low, level country which forms the 
Province of Southland. As the physical features of the lower 
“sa of the valley are not essentially different from those of 
$ Immediate shores of the lake, we are forced to consider them 
Copyright, A. S. PACKARD, JR. 1876. 
