452 - JOURNAL OF SCIENCE, 
Cook still towered nearly 9000 feet above us. Our advance was 
here checked by the ice of the much-broken Ball glacier coming 
down from our left, and though we carried our “swags” on to 
its surface in hopes of camping further up, the absence of scrub 
on the farther spurs of sufficient size to promise a supply of 
fire-wood made us retrace our steps and pitch our tent on a gravel 
flat, close to the mountain side in the angle formed by the Mount 
Cook and Tasman glaciers. Here a glacier stream provided us 
with water, and the vicinity of our camp was strewn with dead 
wood brought down by landslips and avalanches from the steep 
slopes above. While looking for a suitable nook for our tent, 
Boss came upon a little square patch of dwarf gnarled Coprosma 
exactly the square of our tent : it grew by itself on the gravel in 
a snug corner, and seemed as if prepared so specially for our 
use that we did not wish to decline the hospitality of nature, so 
filling up the centre of the square with some cut bushes, we 
pitched our tent on it. Never was a bed more comfortable; its 
spring was perfect. We never sank to within less than five or 
six inches of the ground, and so long as the wekas contented them- 
selves with squeaking and grunting, and not pecking upwards, 
we did not wish to deny them the comfortable lodging beneath 
us which they seemed to appreciate. 
From this camp we made a long day’s excursion up the main 
elacier, and completed our reconnaissance of the ridges of Mount 
Cook ; and from a point on the medial moraine I took a circle 
of angles with a view tofmaking my map, and secured a couple 
of negatives of the Hochstetter ice-fall; but the light was so 
brilliant, there not being a cloud in the sky, that over exposure 
of my plates was almost unavoidable. On this day we spent 
some time sounding crevasses. Into one moulin I lowered a 
stone with 320 feet of cord, but as the cord was found to have 
tangled, the observation could not be relied on. We then timed 
the fall of large stones, and on several occasions measured 5 by 
my watch before the first crash was heard, giving a depth of 300 
feet, and then asa series of bangs followed for as long again, 
these crevasses must at the lowest computation be 500 feet 
The glacier close to our camp, which I have named 
the Ball glacier, after John Ball, who may be looked upon 
as one of the fathers of Alpine exploration, had some points of 
special interest. Flowing from the S.W., it met the current of 
the main glacier coming from the north, and failing to stem it, 
was pushed aside downs the valley, its lower portion thus making 
an acute angle with its former course. As our tent was in the 
angle, I had abundant opportunity for watching its great slopes 
of ice which stood up high above the moraine, and by observation 
I found the ice moved past at the rate of one foot per day, At 
one point the pressure had been sufficient to push down the 
moraine as a great wall might have been tumbled over, while 
immediately in front of our camp the glacier was building up the 
rampart by a constant dropping of angular stones. Even in the 
stillness of night these stones evidence its icy life, and one night 
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