Australian Alps

“ But a great part of this eastern half is occupied with the complicated mass of ranges known collectively as the Australian Alps. The whole forms a plateau averaging from 1000 to 2000 ft. high, with many smaller tablelands ranging from 3000 to 5000 ft. in height. The highest peak, Bogong, is 6508 ft. in altitude. The ranges are so densely covered with vegetation that it is extremely difficult to penetrate them. About fifteen peaks over 5000 ft. in height have been measured. Along the ranges grow the giant trees for which Victoria is famous. ”

“ Some of these fine days, they tell me, there will be a railway to Heidelberg. Then the slopes will be cut up into building sites, the river meadows irrigated, or turned into market gardens and creameries. The Australian Alps will be more visible to the naked eye than ever. ”

“ No more was the outlook to be over smiling downs backed up by the fleecy-topped Alps, a scene that told of nothing but peace, prosperity, and all the riches of a bountiful soil. The way of the pioneer was, in future, to lead to the north, where the earth refused to afford him pasture for his animals, the clouds to drop rain, and the very trees gave no shade to protect him from the sun in its noontide wrath. ”

“ The only large rivers that are at present known are those which flow off the western slope of the Great Eastern Chain in New South Wales, and of these the only one having a permanent stream of water is the one which rises from the only mountain summits that are permanently covered with snow,—namely, the river Murray from the Australian Alps. The whole remaining coast of Australia, has now been carefully surveyed without the mouth of any large or important stream having been discovered. ”

“ Over ten millions of acres are thus covered with forest-clad mountains which in due time will become a very valuable asset of the state. The Australian Alps are connected with the Pyrenees by a long ridge called the Dividing Range (1500 to 3000 ft. high) .
Victoria is fairly well watered, but its streams are generally too small to admit of navigation. This, however, is not the case with the Murray river. ”

“ Macarthur ascended the Australian Alps on the 12th of February; about noon they found themselves sitting on the most elevated peak of Australia, at the height of seven thousand eight hundred feet above the level of the sea, beyond the reach of vegetation, and surrounded with perpetual snows ”

“ In Australia there are the Grampians, the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Blue Mountains, as in Europe and America, but in miniature. This simply implies either that the imagination of geographers is not infinite, or that their vocabulary of proper names is very poor.”
“Then these Australian Alps,” said Lord Glenarvan, “are—”
“Mere pocket mountains,” put in Paganel; “we shall get over them without knowing it.”
“Speak for yourself,” said the Major. “It would certainly take a very absent man who could cross over a chain of mountains and not know it.” ”

“ While the southern margin of the plain consists of walls of sandstone cliffs, extending along the sea-coast, the plateau on the east, south-east, the west, and partly on the north, is bordered by terraced ramparts of mountains. These elevations consist of granite and syenite on the west side, rising from 1000 to 3000 feet in height. On the east side, in New South Wales and Gipps Land, they rise to a much greater height, attaining 7000 feet at the south-east corner in the Australian Alps. ”

“ Surrounding the central dry area of Australia, the isohyets describe almost concentric curves, any modifications being almost entirely due to variations in elevation. Thus, the Darling Ranges to a great degree account for the excellent rainfall of the south-west corner of Australia. The Flinders Range (South Australia) and Australian Alps in the south-east have heavier rainfalls than the surrounding tracts owing to their cooling effect on the air currents. Along the eastern elevated margin of Australia every ridge between large river valleys accounts for a somewhat greater rainfall. ”

“ Northwards and eastwards extended in glorious and shining array the magnificent chain of the Alps; glacier upon glacier, peak upon peak, range upon range of splendid mountains. Eastwards a fine rocky peak without a name and Mount Darwin, and looking south-westwards down the Tasman Glacier, from whence we had toiled our laborious way, the eye could follow the course of the great ice stream for twelve or thirteen miles, flanked by the grand mountains which sent down their tributary ice streams to join the mass in the valley below. ”

“ There are mountains nearly as lofty in the Solomon Islands, while in New Zealand we have the superb Southern Alps (12,349 [34] feet at their highest) , which give a magnificent display of snow peaks and glaciers. But much of Australia is flat and undulating, and the highest mountain in that continent is only 7328 feet. Another thing which marks off Australia from the rest of Australasia is the complete absence of active volcanoes. ”

“ Northwards, from Mount Aspiring, which is at the head of this jumble of southern mountains that spreads itself through fiordland and lakeland, the Southern Alps proper extend in an almost unbroken chain along the western side of the Middle Island of New Zealand to where Mount Cook, or Aorangi, rears his snow-crowned ridge above the grim precipices and flanking glaciers, and, dominating the landscape, gives an outlook from sea to sea. ”

“ High mountains are a feeling.
The Hochstetter Glacier is one of the most impressive and beautiful sights in the Southern Alps. Its supplies come even from the very summits of Aorangi and Mount Tasman, the two noblest mountains in Australasia. Avalanches from the eastern and northern slopes of Aorangi descend to a large ice plateau situate at an altitude of 8,000 feet. From between the great north-eastern spur of Aorangi and the southern slopes of Mount Tasman the Linda Glacier issues also into this plateau; it was discovered and named by Mr. Green. ”

“ The Southern Alps proper may be said to extend over a distance of about one hundred miles of the middle part of the South Island, the chain being situated closer to the western than the eastern ocean. The slopes on the western side are the more precipitous, and are clothed with heavy timber and intersected by innumerable mountain torrents, fed in most cases by glaciers, some of which descend to within 600 feet of sea-level. ”

“ On the flanks of these mountains, and on the sub-Alpine ranges of hills or plains adjoining them, those appearances which have been so often alluded to, as distinguishing or accompanying the drift, between the 50th and 70th parallels of north latitude, suddenly reappear and assume, in a southern region, a truly arctic development. Where the Alps are highest, the largest erratic blocks have been sent forth; as, for example, from the regions of Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, into the adjoining parts of Switzerland and Italy ”

“ With it the story of New Zealand alpine-climbing has been bound up for a quarter of a century, and such romance as that story has to show is chiefly found in attempts, successful and unsuccessful, to reach the topmost point of Aorangi. Canterbury had been settled for thirty-two years before the first of these was made. For the low snow-line, great cliffs, and enormous glaciers of the Southern Alps have their especial cause of origin. They bespeak an extraordinary steepness in the rock faces, and a boisterous climate with rapid and baffling changes of temperature. ”

“ For those with means and time sufficient to indulge their love of climbing among the great Alps, the old snow ways of the mountains still remain sufficient in number and in sensation. But for the ever-increasing number of men whom circumstances limited to the lesser hills of our own islands or to the lower alpine ranges, the grass and snow ways began to prove too unexciting as their novelty became exhausted, and the rock peaks and the sheer rock faces of the Lake Fells, Skye or the Dolomites offered a new temptation. ”

“ Another characteristic effect of the High Alps often presents itself when one has been climbing for two or three hours, with nothing in sight but the varying wreaths of mist that chased each other monotonously along the rocky ribs up whose snow-covered backbone we were laboriously fighting our way. Suddenly there is a puff of wind, and looking round we find that we have in an instant pierced the clouds, and emerged, as it were, on the surface of the ocean of vapour. ”

“ Giant Alps clothed half up their steep sides with evergreen pines,—whose dark forms end abruptly where snow and ice begin,—stand out against a pure sky of more than Italian blue, and only when a cleared saddle is reached can the traveller look down over the wooded hills and vallies rolling away inland before him, or turn his eyes sea-ward to the bold coast with its many rivers, whose wide mouths foam right out to where the great Pacific waves are heaving under the bright winter sun. ”

“ In a single day almost any of them may be ascended from snout to snow-field, and descended again. To explore their remotest recesses no elaborately equipped expedition is required. Yet they are large enough to be imposing, and penetrate deep enough into the heart of the hills to isolate their votaries completely from the world of human habitation. It is to this medium quality that the Alps owe much of their charm. This, too, it is that makes them an almost perfect mountain playground. ”

“ It subordinates to itself all the high surrounding peaks and renders them the mere rim of its cup. To a less degree magnificent, yet far finer than the general run of Alpine glaciers, are the other chief ice-rivers of the Oberland district, which thus becomes par excellence the home of long glacier-passes, leading through great varieties of mountain scenery, and connecting centres relatively remote. The longest and finest glacier-traverse in the Alps is that which leads from the Grimsel to the Lötschen valley right through the heart of the range. ”

“ Every mountain slope from summit to piedmont is, from the anthropo-geographical standpoint, a complex phenomenon. When high enough, it may show a graded series of contrasted complementary locations, closely interdependent grouping of populations and employments, every degree of density from congestion to vacancy, every range of cultural development from industrialism to nomadism. The southern slope of the Monte Rosa Alps, from the glacier cap at 4500 meters to the banks of the Po River, yields within certain limits a zonal epitome of European life from Lapland to the Mediterranean. ”

“ Such, in brief, is a history of what Alpine work has been accomplished amongst the Southern Alps of New Zealand. Other glacier excursions, it is true, there have been, but they are few, and with the exception of the expeditions of Mr. Sealy and the Government Survey to the Godley and Classen Glaciers farther north, and of a few attempts to climb Mount Earnslaw in the Southern Lake district, are not worthy of much note as Alpine expeditions, undertaken in the orthodox manner with axe and rope. ”

“ To the westward, many of the peaks reach altitudes of over 5,000 and 6,000 feet, until the large depression is encountered through which the great body of interior waters find their way to the sea by means of the Murray Channel.
West of this gap, the edge of the tableland is broken, and depressed, the highest crests of the coastal range rarely reaching to 3,000 feet in height, and along the shore line, facing the Great Australian Bight, it is almost non-existent. ”

“ Furthermore, the snow-line in the New Zealand Alps is much lower than that of Switzerland's Alps. On the west it is so low that, between latitudes forty-three and forty-four degrees, the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers descend to within slightly less than seven hundred feet of sea-level and into dense forests.
A varied world, in truth, are the Southern Alps and their radiating ranges. On one side are the festooned forests of the Tasman seaboard; on the other side are sparsely inhabited tussock plains. Here stormy elements and great rivers of ice are slowly wearing down mountains ”

“ Such an immense body of rushing water, receiving, as it does, the whole of the drainage of the Southern Alps, from the head of the Mueller Glacier to that of the Murchison, necessarily creates great havoc amongst the glacial and fluviatile deposits through which it descends, and, as a matter of course, all the smaller stones are hurried and rolled along to form shingle on the river-beds further down, leaving the larger ones, which alone can stand against the force of the flood. ”

“ Though not high, as heights go in the European Alps or in the Himalaya, they are imposing mountains. It is only within comparatively recent years that passes have been discovered between the lakes and the sounds; and although these passes do not lead the traveller beyond the sub-Alpine heights, they take him through scenery that is no less remarkable for its beauty than for its grandeur—a fitting introduction to those greater marvels in the heart of the Southern Alps. ”

“ The Swiss Alps are a mighty source of revenue; the New Zealand Alps are as yet mainly a source of scenery. No hundred thousand tourists annually jab New Zealand's Alps with alpenstocks, as in the Central Alps of Europe. Here, where the first mountaineers were Maoris, no numerous grim tales of tragedy make one shudder, no hundred bleeding corpses annually stain the snows. Here is a mighty field for exploration, a great white solitude with deep silences still unbroken by footfall of man. ”