The Waiatu.

The next river of importance is the Waiau, difficult to cross on foot except in autumn and winter, after a continuance of fine weather. It is formed by two principal branches which, although flowing in the same broad valley beginning at the western foot of the Southern Alps, 10 miles from the coast-line, unite only three miles from its mouth. The Totara or northern confluent is fed by several glaciers, descending from Mount Beaumont, in their lower portion densely covered with moraines. The southern and main branch, the Waiau, has its principal source in the Francis Joseph glacier, the terminal face of which in 1865, according to my barometrical measurements, was lying 705 feet above the sea-level. This magnificent glacier descends from the north-western slopes of Mount Haidinger, where large nevé accumulations are situated. Its distance from the sea-shore is 13½ miles. The outlet of this glacier, of which I have given a description in the first part, and of which a lithographic view from a photograph of the late page 226Thomas Pringle has been added, has for the first three miles of its course a northerly direction, in a narrow channel; it then receives the Agassiz branch, formed by the outlets of two small glaciers descending from a snow-field north of Mount De la Beche. Both are densely covered with morainic accumulations. After the entrance of both main branches into the broad Waiau valley, they have to their junction, and then to the sea, a nearly north-west direction, flowing generally in numerous channels with broad shingle reaches; excepting, crosses the valley, through which both branches have cut their way. This sign of the last glacier extension is very clear and fresh. It is almost needless to say that ancient morainic accumulations, several hundred feet high, accompany the broad river-bed of the Waiau on both sides, terminating in the Waiau and Omoeroa cliffs near the coast, about two miles distant from each other.