Image Description from historic lecture booklet: "New Zealands only misfortune is that she is so far from the centers of population on our globe. But, undoubtedly as wealth increases in the world, and our globe trotters tire of the more common and convenient places, New Zealand will attract increasing numbers and eventually will become a great Mecca, particularly for the more hardy and appreciative of the tourists and adventurers. The higher parts of the Southern Alps of New Zealand challenge comparison with the Alps of Switzerland, for although they fall short by two or three thousand feet, the lower snow-line of the New Zealand Alps more than compensates for their lesser altitude. Mt. Cook, 12,350 feet, is the highest point not only in the Southern Alps, but in New Zealand. Its Maori name, Aorangi, means "Cloud in the Heavens.""
Image Description from historic lecture booklet: "Every large snow-field is also an ice-field, for where snow accumulates to great depth and lies long upon the surface, it is changed to ice. the beginning of this change may be seen in the snow a few days after it falls, for it soon loses its light, flaky character and becomes granular, so that it feels harsh to the hand. The change is very distinct in the last banks of snow in the spring. They are made up of coarse grains (granules) of ice, sometimes as larges as peas. The change from flakes of snow to granules of ice is due, in part, to the melting of the snow and the freezing of the water. If there is much snow, it is compressed by its own weight, and after being compacted in this way, the freezing of the sinking water binds the granules together. By this and perhaps other process, the large part of every thick snow-field becomes an ice-field merely coated over with snow."
