The Hochstetter Ice Falls, Mount Cook, New Zealand, showing the rugged character of these glaciers

The Hochstetter Ice Falls, Mount Cook, New Zealand, showing the rugged character of these glaciers

The Hochstetter Ice Falls, New Zealand

7085

From the summits of Mount Cook and Mount Tasman, the two noblest mountains in Australasia, come the mighty avalanches that swell the volume of the wonderful Hochstetter Glacier, making of it one of the most impressive sights in the Southern Alps. The frozen snow, massed in a vast plateau, presses ever downward on the top of the glacier, forcing the contents, of the ice-river into the Tasman Glacier, to be thence carried onwards to the river. The uneven bed of the Hochstetter breaks, up the ice into enormous seracs of every conceivable shape. The fall at the top is probably about a mile and a half in width, narrowing to one mile at its foot, and the ice is broken into cubes, pinnacles, and towers of all shapes and sizes, intersected by crevasses of the divinest bluish-green colour, and each pinnacle crested with a white cap of unconsolidated snow. Viewed from above, writes Mannering, the frozen cascade tumbles in the wildest confusion over a precipice of 4000 feet, to join the Tasman Glacier at an altitude of 4000 feet (roughly speaking), and presents a most wonderful appearance. A glance at the stereograph is sufficient to demonstrate the difficulties that beset the Alpine traveller in this world of ice and snow. Without an experienced guide - and in this respect our artist was particularly fortunate in having men like Clarke and Graham) - and without the necessary paraphernalia, the task would be impossible.

1 gelatine silver print stereograph (10 x 15 cm) mounted on card (10 x 18 cm)

Copyright George Rose. No known restrictions on publication