THE WEATHER.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9157, 15 July 1895, Page 2

THE WEATHER.

Oa Friday and Saturday nighte there were ehatp frosts, but yesterday a thaw began before nooa and continued for some hours. A slight shower or two helped to melt the enow. The upper reaches of the ornamental water in the Aehburton Domain were frozen sufficiently hard on Saturday morning to permit of skating being freely indulged in. Mr Arthur Hope, owner of Richmond station, Lake Tekapo, came to Timaru yesterday, and gave some information about the condition" of the Mackenzie Country. Each snowfall h&3 beeu measured at the station, and they total 6ft. It is not lying so thick aa that now, but is 3ft deep at the edge of tho lake, audgetsdeoper as one leaves the water. When the heavy snow came on 4000 or 5000 ewes made their way to the edge of the lake, and are there now, waUjiuq backwards and forwards along the track they have made, with a swarm of hawks and guils fiying about them. The last task undertaken ou the station before Mr Hope left was to search for the station horses, the men having rigged up snowshoes for the purpose. Mr Hops's experience may be taken as a sample of what other station owners in the Mackenzie have had to endure. He left the station on Monday by boat, and on Tuesday, with two others, essayed to walk from the Tekapo Hotel to Burkes Pass. They made 3 miles in 2£ hours, and then turned back, seeing that it was impossible to get through- They were lour hours in returning, the drift filling up their tracks, and might have been unable to get back had they not been seen and a party gone out to meet and tread a track for them. On Tuesday night three inches more snow fell. On Wednesday Messrs Hope, R. Cowan and C. Kerr started on horseback, and with great difficulty got through in six hours. The road had been ploughed out, making banks four feet high. These were filled level with dusty drift, and had to be plunged through. The snow outside wus not so deep, but the crust, which would not bear the horses' feet, was too strong for them to work through. In some placee they had a great struggle to get through drifts six feel deep, both men and horses having to do their share of jumping on the snow to make a track. There had been no communication with the WokU station up to Wednesday, but Mr Dickson had managed to get through to Tekapo from Balmoral. A party of a dozen or so from Black Forest were nearly losiug several of their number when within, a few mites of the Pass, and they were only go L in by a rescue party. Some of them were frost bitten. As to the out- | look for the cheep, Mr Hope has the i gloomiest possible view. Here and there the ground is showing towards the aun, black facings being visible on Rhoborough ■Downs, Mary's rauge, and ths Grampians. A Press Association telegram states that at Wellington on Friday night there was the sharpest frost experienced for many years. The temperature in the shade was 32, and on the grass 20, which is exceptionally low for Wellington. With the exception of Wednesday afternoon, there has been a succession of clear days there for nearly a fortnight. The Arrowtown correspondent of the Otago Daily Times reports a keen frost on Friday night. The ink at the telegraph office was frozen, and the ink in his pen froze while he was writing. A correspondent from Waitaki writea to the Times: — "I read some account of the snowstorms in your paper, which I think are very misleading. Sheep, in some peculiar positions, may live for six weeks in snow, but it is rare. I have seen numbers of sheep on high country dead in a day or two after a fall of snow, and last month I saw more than 80 dead or dyiug not more than 30 hours after the first fall of snow, about the 15th J une. Besides, if sheep did struggle through alive after a few weeks of. being snowed in they would cut little or no wool, ana would.be unlikely ever to recover from the effects of such a struggle. I have known the Waitaki for over 30 years, and have never seeD anything like the cold and snow that we have experienced this last month, and I think there is little doubt that the loss of sheep will be enormous. The thermometer read 3deg. Fahr. on the lOch July, and over most of the. country the enow is lying from 20in to any depth in i the drifts—2oft or 30ft."