JOG C. DILLWORTH FOX, ON THE GLACIERS, PAST AND PRESENT, 
and getting glimpses of blue ice high up on the left. Eight in 
front towering the tent-like peak of Mount Cook, with Mount 
Stokes ancl Mount Tasman on either hand ; then Mount 
Haidinger with its square top, and the three-peaked Mount He 
la Beche at the turn of the Tasman Glacier ; to the right 
Malte Brun, with its red rock precipices and great ice fields, 
and the shingle slips of the Nun’s Veil (known locally as 
Eotten Tommy) complete the view. From the turn of the road 
westwards, after passing Birch Hill sheep station, you face 
Mount Sefton, with its great overhanging glaciers, which keep 
up a thundering of avalanches day and night, and the view 
from the front door of the “ Hermitage ” of Mount Sefton 
reflected in the little lake is a sight never to be forgotten. 
Your first trip is naturally to the Mueller Glacier close by, 
and your first remark is on the shockingly dirty state of the 
glacier, for no clear ice is to be seen for some miles above its 
snout, it is so entirely covered with ddbris. At the mouth, 
however, you see that is ou the surface only ; that, though 
such a vast quantity of moraine is carried on its back 
little or none is to be seen in its heart ; — —it does not bring along 
underneath it the “ digging tools ” one reads about.* This 
glacier, of all the larger glaciers on the eastern side, would be 
the one that might be expected to excavate ; because it descends 
at a fairly steep angle, perhaps eighteen to twenty degrees ; 
whereas the Tasman never in its lower portion exceeds five 
degrees. But the river at the mouth of the Mueller flows 
out quietly and without any special rush, while, on the other 
hand, the Tasman Eiver generally bursts up with considerable 
violence, sometimes to a height of as much as 15 feet, from the 
pressure of the superincumbent ice. (Not many years ago I 
can remember when the Mueller Glacier had pushed its ice 
completely across the valley, and butted right into the spur of 
Mount Cook, and the Hooker Eiver, which now just washes at 
the foot of the ice cliffs, flowed right under it.) The Tasman 
Glacier is also completely covered with debris at its lower end, 
and it is some 3 miles up before you can find a crevasse to 
sound. The depth confirms what you have surmised, that the 
bottom of the glacier is much below the level of the river at 
its source; but this is no evidence of digging, the simple 
* By “digging tools” the author doubtless means angular blocks and 
stones which by scoring the bed-rock leave behind grooves and hollows 
commonly seen where the ice has been moving. — E d. 
