From these rocks we observed that the course of the glacier commenced under a peak on our left (which must be Mount Darwin itself), and running in a northerly direction for some four or five miles, turning round the end of the spur upon which our saddle was situated, assumed a south-westerly course.
The true saddle between the Murchison and Tasman lay across the glacier below, north-west. Straight ahead of us, north by west, visible over a rocky and unnamed peak on the opposite side of the valley, lay the Dome, then to the north another snow saddle, evidently leading into the Whymper Glacier, and so on to the Wataroa River of the west coast. Following round the range to the right a very fine mountain stands boldly up; to the right of this, again, is situated yet another snow saddle, which we concluded must lead into the Classen Glacier.
The result of the Government survey of the Murchison Glacier, just completed (1891), confirms our surmises regarding the topography of this interesting district.
We were astonished at the great length which the Liebig Range assumes, for it bounds the glacier throughout the whole of its eastern side, diverging from the main chain of the Southern Alps some distance north of the Hochstetter Dome.
Any attempt at a description of the panorama from our saddle would be useless to convey an adequate idea of the view. Harper classed it as similar in character to the views obtained at high altitudes in the Bernese Oberland. An aneroid reading gave our height as about 7,900 feet, but this was much out, as by the recent survey the height of the saddle has been trigonometrically determined as 7,194 feet. Our estimate of the length of the glacier at the time was twelve miles, and the survey has now fixed it at eleven and a half, whilst the average width is as nearly as possible one mile.
MOUNTAIN LILIES (Ranunculus Lyallii)
[Wheeler & Son, Photo.
Reaching the saddle into the Tasman was now quite out of the question, for it would involve a descent to the valley below, the crossing of the upper parts of the glacier, and the scaling of more snow slopes, which appeared to us to be impracticable owing to the numerous crevasses. In addition to this, one man was lying hors de combat on the snow suffering from exhaustion and vomiting. Evidently the only course we could pursue was to retrace our upward route, and that as quickly as possible, for there were but three hours of daylight left to reach a bivouac in the rocks lower down.