45 
EXPLANATION OF THE MAPS* 
UM 1 
direction from the South Cape to the East Cape/»*ffhis forms 
the backbone of the Islands, and reaches its grand and multi¬ 
farious development in the Southern Island, where it assumes, 
in numberless summits covered with snow and glaciers, the 
character of mountains, to which, with full justice, the name 
of the Southern Alps has been given. Majestically in the centre 
of these mountainous regions stands the summit of Mount Cook, 
with its neighbouring giant heights, elevated 13,000 feet above 
the level of the sea, or nearly the height of Mont Blanc. 
Mighty glaciers, streams, and magnificent mountain lakes, 
splendid cascades, passes, and dark clefts whose rocky walls 
re-echo the noisy torrents rushing through them, form the 
beauty of a wild solitary mountain scenery, seldom trodden 
by human feet. The brave explorers who have of late years 
had the courage to penetrate into these wild regions,'* report 
that their grandeur if even equalled is not excelled by any in 
the world. 
Towards the "W"est, those Alpine mountains abruptly assume 
a very precipitous character, and form, on this the stormy 
side of the Island, a dreadfully rugged, weather-beaten, and 
rocky coast. On the East, at the feet of these mountains, lay 
wide-spreading plains and alluvial flats, well adapted for 
agriculture, and which are occupied by the European settlers 
as sheep runs ; while on the North and South the gradations 
and slopes of the mountains are of a clay slate formation, in 
which are hidden those quartz veins that have of late years 
been developed into the rich gold-fields to which Nelson and 
Otago owe their prosperity. 
In the North Island, past Cook’s Straits, the Southern Alps 
have their continuation in the great mountain chain which 
* Mr. Julius Haast, the German traveller, geologist to the 
Province of Canterbury, deserves the highest tribute of praise for his 
researches in the Southern Alps. In 1860 he investigated the mountain 
ranges of Nelson, and in 1860 and 1862 those of the Province of Canter¬ 
bury-, where he reached the highest central summit of Mount Cook, and 
discovered here numerous glaciers to about 3,000 to 4,000 feet above 
the level of the sea, while the height of the eternal snow region com¬ 
mences at 7,500 to 8,000 above that level. The principal glaciers Haast 
named Clyde, Havelock, Ashburton, Godley, Murchison, Tasman 
Hochstetter, Muller, Hooker ; while the principal summits are called 
Mount Tyndall, Mount Forbes, Mount Arrowsmith, Mount Petermann, 
Mount He la Peche, Haidenger Bange, Malte Prun Pange, Mount Flic 
de Beaumont, &c. , &c., — all mountains of 10,000 feet and upwards. 
