DR. HECTOR'S EXPEDITION TO THE WEST COAST.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 59, 21 November 1863, Page 1 (Supplement)

DR. HECTOR'S EXPEDITION TO THE WEST COAST.

[continuedl The schooner was at anchor for 16 days, until the 14th July, of which a few days were lost, owing to bad weather. There is a well sheltered shingle beach, and abundance of firewood and water here; and it has evidently been at one time a favorite place with whalers. The 28th June was spent in examining the bay to the west of Craven Head, and the Cording Islands in the centre of the inlet. To land in this bay, which has a sandy shore, we required to beach the boat in a heavy surf, which by no means an easy or safe undertaking. The weather at this time was very fine, the 30th being quite equal to a summer day, clear, bright, and almost too warm. It was spent on Coal Island. This Island, which has an extent of 4 square miles, is bounded by cliffs 200 to 300 feet in height on all sides. There are, however, several landing-places from which there is no difficulty in ascending thera to the rolling and hilly surface. It is formed of coarse grit, sandstones and conglomerates, interstratified with indurated clay shale containing small seams of coaly matter, and also obvious impressions of fossil plants. The sandstone sometimes contains nodules that are evidently the remains of shells, all the characters of which have been lost. The weather being favourable we sailed for Milford Sound. After getting outside we had a fair wind and clear sky, although there were a succession of snow storms on the mountains. Until nightfall we made but little progress, but by daybreak next morning we were off the entrance of Milford Sound. The scene was magnificent as the sun rose, and slowly lighted up the inequalities of coastward slope, and so threw back the mountains in their true proportions and full grandeur. At dawn they had looked rather insignificant, their sharp serrated crests seeming merely to form a summit of a dark wall rising close to the water's edge. These mountains have a different aspect from those further to the south, for instead of solid cubical masses bounded by mural cliffs, they form groups of peaks joined by narrow ridges, and throw off sloping spurs towards the sea. The highest mountains almost overhang the Sound on either side—Pembroke Peak on the north having a rounded summit covered with perpetual snow, and the Lawrenny Peaks to the south being also snow-clad. It was 11 o'clock before we passed Fox Point, which is the south headland, as at that time in fine weather j the breeze commences to blow up the Sound from the seaward. We anchored for a short time in Anita Bay while I landed to examine the beach I from which the Maories procured the jade or greenstone for the manufacture of their ornaments and weapons. It is from among the shingle that this stone is obtained, occurring as rounded pebbles along with fragments of hornblendic gneiss and felstone. Although I found plenty of these pebbles, I did not discover the source from whence they are derived, but a large felstone dyke crops out behind the beach, in contact with ' a green hornblendic rock and serpentine; and as the felstone near the sides of the dyke contain I small green specks, weich are of the nature of this mineral, it is probable that it has been formed along the line of junction as nodules und irregu- ! lar masses. Proceeding up the Sound, three miles from the entrance, it becomes contracted to the width of half a mile, and its sides rise perpendicularly from the water's edge, sometimes for two thousand feet, and then slope at a high angle to the peaks that are covered with perpetual snow. The scenery is quite equal to the finest that can be enjoyed by the most difficult and toilsome journeys into the Alps of the interior, and the effect being greatly enhanced as well as the access made more easy by the incursion of the sea as it were into their alpine solitudes. The sea in fact now occupies a chasm that was in past ages ploughed by an immense glacier, and it is through the natural progress of events by which the mountain mass has been reduced in altitude that the ice stream has been replaced by the waters of the ocean. The evidence of this change may be seen at a glance. The lateral valleys join the j main one at various elevations, but are all sharply cut off by the precipitous wall of the Sound, the erosion of which was no doubt continued by a great central glacier long after the subordinate | and tributary glaciers had ceased to exist. The precipices exhibit the marks of ice action with great distinctness, and descend quite abruptly to a depth of 800 to 1,200 feet below the water level. Towards its head, the Sound becomes expanded, and receives several large valleys that preserve the same character, but radiate in differ- i ent directions into the highest ranges at the time that these valleys were filled with glaciers. A great " Ice Lake" must have existed in the upper » and expanded portion of the Sound, from which I the only outlet would be through the chasm I which forms its lower part. Two hours sail brought us into a fresh water basin, where we anchored, and next day, as I intended to remain here some time, a large tent was put up on shore and everything in the yacht was taken out and overhauled. The carpenter also commenced to huild the dingy, the timber for which had been cut and sawn while we lay in Cuttle Cove, in Preservation Inlet. Two streams of considerable j size enter the head of Milford Sound, the Cled- | dau River from the S.S.E., and the Arthur River from the S. W. A well timbered flat about a mile in extent lies between them, but has been principally formed by the materials brought down by the first-mentioned stream, consisting of shin- ; fcle and stratified sands. It is evidently a river j valley deposit, and its surface slopes up the valley ot the Cleddau River, forming beaches four to six feet ahove the highest floods. This flat (and j a p v . un dred on islands in the lower part ot the Arthur River) is the only land at the head

| of Milford Sound that could possibly be made 1 available for any purpose. Below the narrow part of the Sound around I Anita Bay, there is another small portion of level ! land, but it is a mere strip by the water's edge L j along the base of steep ranges of hills. Fresh I Water Basin, in which we were moored, is an | 1 expansion of the main channel of the Cleddau | River, lying between the before-mentioned flat 1 ! and a vertical precipice of rock, but closed in I from the up-sound winds by Cemetery Point. ! We lay within a lew hundred yards of the foot of a cascade 540 feet in vertical height. The grand scale of the surrounding scenery detracts, however, from the imposing effect which this fall would have in any other situation. The volume of water is very considerable, especially after heavy rains, forming a stream for a hundred yards between the foot of the fall and the edge of the sea 40 feet in width, and, judging from the flood mark, sometimes 18 to 20 feet in depth. The occasional flooding and the continued dashing of wind and spray from the falling water have prevented the growth of scrub on a small plot of about an acre in extent, which from a distance presents the pleasant, because an unusual sight on this coast, of a grassy kr oil. The surface of this plot is covered with hummocks, not unlike graves, which doubtless has suggested the name Cemetery. For several days afier our arrival in Milford Sound we had continued bad weather, with thuni der and snow storms on the mountains, so that little could be done beyond examining the shores of tho Sound. On the 10th August, however, the weather promised well in the forenoon, so that I started up the Valley of the Cleddau River, but in the afternoon it began to snow heavily, so that I had to return after getting about five miles from the mouth. It was rough and cold work, as the channel is blocked by large boulders, so that it was necessary to cross and re-cros-s the river very frequently. The valley has a very rapid fall, but it is crossed by no ledges of rock or other obstacles than the large boulders derived j from ancient morains, with which the valley is partially blocked up. The floor of the valley is composed of the detrital matter, the rock only j showing at the sides, where it forms steeply inclined slopes, grooved and scratched like those of the Sound. Of course it would be quite useless to search for gold in a valley having this character, even where excavated in an auriferous formation, which it is not, as the detritus has undergone no assortment in the true rocky floor to which it would be necessary to sink, may be many hundred fee t beneath the surface. Three j valleys join to form the main valley of the Cleddau Kiver, but they all seem to originate among precipitous mountains, and give no hope of an easy passage to the eastern side. miles up ! the river, on a tributary from the south-east, I | found the recent camping-place of a party of dig- j gers. They had laboriously cut a track thr< ugh the thicket along the side of the river, so that I infer that it had been flooded at the time of t heir visit, and that they could not follow its channel as I had done. Both the Cleddau and the Arthur Rivers appear to be liable to tremendous floods, i as the line of river-drift can be traced back in the : I woods to the height of 20 feet above their usual j ' level. During these floods the valley would be quite impassable, as the tributary streams could not be flooded. Next day, when examining Deep Water Basin, which lies between the mouth of Arthur River and the wooded flat, we found another camping-place, at which there was—"Nugget, sth June, 1863, R. D. K." carved on a tree, probably by the same party of men that were up the river; also in Harrison Cove, which is the i entrance to the valley that leads to Pembroke Peak, we found another of their camping places of still later date. The geological structure of the mountains around Milford Sound is more complicated than in any other part of the West Coast that I have examined. The prevailing rock is syenitic gneiss, associated with mica schist, greenstone porphyry, and felspatnic schist, succeeded towards the lower part of the Sound by finegrained | gneiss of newer age, felstones, quartzites, and ; clay slates. No metallic ores were observed, but j several might be expected to occur among the; last-mentioned group of strata, if a locality were found to have been ti aversed by fissures in whi«h vein-stone could form. When sailing about the Sound, we frequently saw large shoais of the cow fish, which is an immense porpoise ten to twelve feet in length. They swim with great speed, I raising their large back fin out of the water every J few minutes; and sometimes leaping several feet ! clear of the surface. I shot one, but having no harpoon could not secure him before he sunk. j Several seals were also seen about the mouth of the Sound; but, though easily shot, it was impossible to secure them, the water being so deep j close to the shore, as they also sink when dead. 1 Fish are not so abundant in Milford Sound as they are to the south ; but we got a few trum- i peter and sea perch of excellent quality; and I also several small species of fish, which I have not seen elsewhere on the coat-t. On the 17th of August, there having been several days of fine \ weather, with S.E. wind, I made another attempt to examine the Cleddau River, taking with me three men, a tent, and provisions for some days. The woods were very dry and pleasant, and the stream so much lower than during the j previous week, that we were able to skirt it in many places where I had previously to wade across it. Following up the middle of the three branches which join to form this river, by evening we had made about eight miles—the latter part of the journey being very rough work, on account of the great size of the bouiders which block the channel and over which we had to sciamble at the risk of slipping into the torrent; this did happen to two of the party, but fortunately with no worse result than a thorough drenching in the icy i water.

1 The fall of the river is very great; and the bed ; of the stream is everywhere composed of glacier detritus, sometimes rudely stratified, and filling the valley to the height of 1500 feet above the i sea level, the immediate river valley being excai vated between this accumulation and the steep J smooth wall of rock against which it rests. Next day we followed up one of the branches to its source. The upper part of its valley is cut i to the depth of 540 feet, through a true moraine, | consisting of earthy clay, containing regular ( blocks of rock of all sizes up to 30 and even 40 ! feet in diameter. The stream ends quite abruptly against a glacialised surface of rock, which slopes to a height ! of 3000 teet, at an angle of from 30deg. to4odeg. ! The snow, which falls from the mountains, is unable to lie on this polished surface, and sliding 1 down, wedges in at the back of the moraine, forming a miniature glacier, though without the true ice structure, at an elevation of only 1000 feet above the sea level. The depth of the grove whi«h has been cut by this snow bank between j the rock and the moraine, is not less than4oo feet. ! By a slightly dangerous climb, we got up the 1 glacialised surface of the rock, and on to the top of the great moraine, which is heaped up against it. The frequent landslips which take place from the face of the moraine cliff does great havoc among the trees that grow on top, leaving their , roots bare, so that they die, and are easily thrown over. The forest is very open, and some of the , trees are of good size. The principal trees which I observed, at an altitude of 1800 feet, 1 were the black liirch, the iron wood, or batta, the remu, totara, cedar (a second species of Potoi carpus), broad leaf, New Zealand hoiiy {Eurybria dentata), moka, and several others. At this altitude, on westerly exposures, there are few lichens, or mosses, as the woods are well aired and the soil dry. We were now in the third great longitudinal valiey, which runs north and south, eiossing the main valley, which is continuous with that of the Sound. As these valj leys conform to the trend of the strata, they probably indicate lines of softer rock, along which the erosion was more easily effected by the de- | scending glaciers. In these valleys, the moraine matter is heaped principally on the eastern side, being opposite to that upon which the greatest accumulation of ice must always have taken place. The study of the deposits which fill these valleys possesses great practical interest from their intimate relation to the gold drifts on the eastern side of the mountains. Although the mountains rise so precipitously from the valleys, they are not so steep towards their summits, where there is generally a large i area, presenting slopes on which snow could rest under circumstances favourable for its accumula- | tion, and form the source of glaciers which would ! descend into tlie lower valleys. Pembroke Peak (6623 feet) is covered with perpetual snow, which on its south-east face extends as low as 4000 with a slope of 20 c to 30°, and there terminates in a cliff of true glacical ice, judging by its intense blue tint compared with that of the surrounding I snow; and did it not overhang a precipice, this ■ ice would doubtless descend as a glacier to a very j low altitude. Now the average height of the mountain ridges is nearly 6000 feet and with the present conditions of climate, an elevation of the land equal to 2000 feet \s ould, according to the best estimate I can form, raise about six-tenths of the area of this mountain district to that altitude, which is certainly considerably above the snow line in the strict sense, or from where the snow never disappears during the summer, J unless by gravitation after assuming the glacier form by regelation. It is a mistake to estimate the size of glaciers generated from a mountain range merely by its altitude, as it is truly the area which in the district is elevated above the snow line that determines their extent. If this be the case the area must always be diminishing rapidly, from the eroding action of the descending ice, and therefore the extent of the glaciers must also diminish. Judging from the structure of the Sounds in the west side of the mountains, and that of the Lake district on the east side, I am inclined to think that the opposite sides of this mountain range have undergone repeated and alternate oscillations to the extent of at least 1000 feet in either direction from a nominal point; and that the Western district being at present near to the period of greatest depression, the re-elevation of; the land to the other extreme would be almost \ sufficient to extend the glaciers to their ancient j limits, for the sesidual excess of cold to effect thio could easily be accounted for by the necessary, alterations in the physical geography of thei country which would accompany such re-ele- | vation. The immense lapse of time and number of secu- j lar returns of these conditions is well shown by I the remains of the high level valleys, which were i the wide channels for glaciers of earlier date, but are now represented as fringing shelves along the sides of more profound valleys, just like the ter-! races skirting the valley of a river, which is changing its course from side to side, of a gradually deepening channel. From the altitude we ! had attained, I could see there was no hope of finding a saddle at the head of this valley, which appears to be surrounded by precipitous moun- i tains 5000 feet in height, with detached snowy I peaks several thousand feet hfgher. As the weather was very threatening, we made our way back to the camp of the previous night, and regained the schooner next day during a violent storm, with rain from the south-west. On the 24th August, giving up all hopes of the arrival of the Maories—of whom we heard nothing since we were in Chalky Inlet—l left the head of Milford Sound and dropped down to Anita Bay, where we anchored at dark; and next morning, at 4 a.m., taking advantage of the land breeze,! sailed to the northwards to the Awarua River,' which is laid down on the chart 18 miles further

up the coast. After making 6 miles, the wind I died away when we were off Yates'Point, which is the first promontory to the rorth of Milford Sound. As the yacht lay becalmed, with too heavy a swell running to allow of our towing, and, as it was necessary that the Awarua should be carefully examined before we attempted to enter it with the craft, I went on in advance with three hands in the whaleboat. Keeping close in shore, I had a good view of the coast, and satisfied myself that it would be quite possible to get along it from Milford Sound northwards. The appearance of the country is considerably altered from that to the south of Milford Sound, as the high snowy mountains trend to the E.N.E. from Pembroke Peak, and retire behind lower wooded hills, which, however, are too steep to be of any value, unless the bush could be replaced by pasturage. The coast line forms a succession of be Id headlands, which generally have a group of sharp rocks or a long reef extending from them to the seaward. Between these headlands are shallow bays, with steep sandy or shingle beaches, on which the surf breaks with tremendous violence. Three of these bays are of large size—each having a large valley extending from it into the inrior in a southerly direction ; and it is as flowing into the most northerly of these that the Awarua of the Admiralty Surveyor is laid down on the chart. The proper Awarua of the Maories, according to all the information that I am able to collect, is, however, a large river that falls into Jackson's Bay to the north of that river, which I named the Jackson last summer, but I have since learnt is known to the Maories as the Terrewhatta. After pulling ten miles, and when opposite to the south end of the second bay, or Martin's Bay of the chart, we observed a smoke on the shore ; and, on standing in for it, found it to be a party of Maories, who made signs for us to land; but as the sea was breaking nearly a quarter of a mile from the shore, I dared not take the boat even within hail. Guided by the Admiraity chart, which hitherto I had found faithfully correct, I was making to the next bay to the north in search of the Awarua River, when Henry, who had been along this coast sealing, though he knew nothing of that river, thought that I was going too far, and that the mouth of the only large river he had ever heard of on the coast, into which there was a chance of taking a yacht, was at the northern extremity of Martin's Bay, as he recognised the long and dangerous reefs that lay before us. On making towards the north end of the sandy beach, which extends for three miles, we found a strong current against us, weich quite confirmed his opinion. Stll, however, when close in shore, we could see no appearance of an entrance, the surf seeming to break with increased violence where the sandy beach meets the rocks. Proceeding cautiously and keeping a few boats' lengths from the rocks, we, however, found that this appearance was deceptive, and that there was really a pretty wide channel lying between the rocks and the point of the sandspit, and pulling up against a current of two or three knots, a few hundred yards brought us into comparatively still water, when we found that we were in a large river about a quarter of a mile in width, the first reach of which extends for nearly two miles, parallel with the sea shore, and separated from it only by a narrow sandspit. After landing on a gravelly point where there was an old Maori hut and a camping place where tents had been pitched very recently, I lost no time in examining and making a rough plan of the entrance of the river, and having sounded carefully, set up guide marks by which to bring in the schooner at once with the next morning's tide, should she arrive in the offing during the night. The channel is quite deep enough for much larger vessels, as there is ten feet of water in the shallowest part of the bar, but it is very narrow, and there are five or six awkward sunken rocks on that side on to which the current would naturally tend to sweep a vessel. However, I anticipated no difficulty in getting the yacht in if we could only hit the proper time of the tide. Next morning as we could see nothing of her in the offing, we pulled up the river against the ebb ior a few miles, and were greatly pleased with the alluvial land and the fine quality of the forest growth with which it is covered. Being afraid that the schooner might arrive in time for the evening tide, I did not go far up the river, and on returning to tie sandspit at 1 p.m. we saw her at a distance of 8 miles to the S.W., but further from the land than where we had left her on the previous day. After lighting a large fire as a signal, it being then low tide, I was able to improve my plan of the entrance to the river and fill in the rocks and channel more accurately than previously. The current was flowing out with great velocity, the clear channel at the turn of the tide being contracted to a width of 110 feet. While we were tending the signal fire on the sandspit after dark, the Maories we had seen on the beach on the previous day joined us. There is only one family of them, consisting of a very old man, his wife and two daughters. They have lived here for five years, having previously resided in Jackson's Bay. Through Henry, I learnt from them that a vessel, which from their description we supposed to be a cutter, had called here some months ago and landed two men, who proceeded up the river in a small boat, but returned in a short time in a starving condition, having lost their tent, gun, and provisions by a sudden freshet of the river which swept them away during the night. The Maories supported these men for a long time until their vessel called back for them On her second visit she entered the river and sailed up it for a long distance, and, as far as we could make out, they were here at the time of the great storm which we experienced in Thompson's Sound, which, commenced on the 25th July. (To be Continued.)