202 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



AN EXCURSION TO THE TRELISSIC BASIN. 



While the wholesome taste for mountain touring which has arisen 

 in the colony in the last few years impels our town folk to visit Mount 

 Cook, Lake Wakatipu, and other centres, our travelling public has not 

 yet learned to value the bye paths which add so much interest to such 

 travelling. Some time before the Hermitage was built I camped with 

 a jiarty including Mr. Huddlestone at the foot of a spur in the Ben 

 Ohou range where now Glentanner station stands. Having a spare 

 day I ascenled to the summit of the mountain at the back of the 

 station, and probably got better results than could be obtained nearer 

 Mount Ccok at the altitude which I reached, viz., 8,600 feet. I cannot 

 too strongly recommend this comparatively easy day's work — 10 hours 

 suffice — to anyone who wishes to study the whole system of Mount 

 Cook and the peaks to right and left and the three great glaciers. Yet 

 this mountain is entirely neglected. I have never yet managed to 

 induce anybody to go and visit a view equal to that from the Gorner 

 Grat. Experimentini>- in a similar way I found another lying much 

 nearer to hand though perhaps not equal to that. In January last 

 after the visit of the Australasian Association was over, I accepted 

 the hospitality of Mr. J. D. Enys, of Castle Hill, for a few days. My 

 wife accompanied me, and we found there Mr. Kirk on a botanising 

 excui'sion. Castle hill is on the West Coast road, 20 miles from 

 Springfield. It is not on the line of the Midland Railway, but it is the 

 best piece of land in the valley of the Upper Waimakariri. Mr. Enys' 

 house, now owned by Mr. Stronach, is 2,500 feet above the sea, and is 

 beautifully situated in a clump of Mountain Beech (Fagus cliffortioides) 

 which extends over some thousands of acres along the face of the range. 

 It commands a full view of Mount Torlesse, a famous collecting ground 

 for botanists. The district is an enclosed basin with no outlet under 

 3.000 feet in height, save the gorge of the Wamakariri. The floor of 

 the basin is composed of limestone, I am not geologist enough to tell 

 its history, but it looks as if it had been a kind of land-locked bay, with 

 a narrow entrance from an ancient coast sea. Marvellous collections of 

 fossil teeth have been made there, and Mr. Enys showed me a 

 remarkable little bone which we were convinced was the top of a bird's 

 bone, — this, too, out of the limestone. Our first excursion was through 

 the beautiful beech forest in which we noted from time to time the 

 gorgeous crimson mistletoe, and tip the stony creek bed to a height of 

 4,100 feet to the first of the Edelweiss. This for a lady is a good climb. 

 Next day I went with Mr. Rogers, a nephew of my host, to the height 

 of 6,900 feet. The way up this height is simple ; it is to follow the 

 spur oj^posite the door of the Castle Hill Hotel until the summit is 

 reached. It was a broiling day and I shall not easily forget our struggles 

 over the broken slates to reach a small patch of snow near the top. 

 But the view from the top is really magnificent. Mount Cook, about 

 90 miles off, stood out splendidly with its chief neighbours in bold relief. 

 This is one of the points from which it is seldom seen and it gives a 

 new view of the extension northward of the range. Two bold moun- 

 tains much nearer flanked the view ; I suppose Mount Arrowsmith and 



