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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 3 (August 1, 1931)
The Sliding Mountains
The Sliding Mountains.
Thunderstorms have been known to start avalanches of snow and great slides of loose rock. There is a typical sharply inclined plane of shingly rock and gravel, on the side of the Cook Range above the Hooker Valley. Making for the Ball Pass from the Hooker we used to cross this with caution and in silence, knowing that careless walking and loud talking has been known to set these fans of loose mountain debris in motion.
These mountains, one cannot but observe, are in an advanced stage of disintegration. Tremendous as they are, they are wasting away before one's eyes. Those vast masses of moraine borne down by the glaciers, those huge slides of loose rock that fill the couloirs are gradually reducing the dimensions of the peaks and ranges. The process is comparatively rapid in such slatey Alps as these, so unlike the granite precipices further south. The hills are not eternal here. Still, they will do our time!
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“Who is not attracted by bright and pleasant children, to prattle, to creep, and to play with them?”—Epictetus.
Our Children's Gallery.—(1) Betty, Rona and Alan Barnes (Lower Hutt, Wellington); (2) Cora Crocker (Palmerston North); (3) Helen and Alick Gordon (Lower Hutt); (4) Doreen and Johnny Hoskins (Palmerston North); (5) Ngaire and Barrie Sadler (Christchurch); (6) Graham Young (Khandallah, Wellington); (7) Philip and Esme Poppleton (Wellington); (8) Ian Gordon Thompson (Wanganui); (9) Elsie Trolle (Ngaio, Wellington); (10) son of Mr. W. W. Stewart (Auckland); (11) Trever Askew (Lower Hutt, Wellington).
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