ICEBERGS ON LAKE

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 47, 24 February 1934, Page 10

ICEBERGS ON LAKE

A STRANGE DISCOVERY

■ How many people 'know that there exists' in New Zealand- an:.unnamed lake in' South Westland,\vith.'nuuibers of icebergs, ■ the size lof a house floating on its surface or grounded on its shores?. This ;was: vouched, for byCaptain G. :IY Yerex, an officer of the Department of .Internal .Affairs, who is iri charge 0f.,-the deer-killing operations throughout the South Island, states the " Christchurch Times." Men employed on one of the parties came across the lake in almost impenetrable country, aftel two days- by pack-horse and two days? hard slogging on foot. A tongue of the Hooker Glacier reaches right down to the lake, huge pieces of the glacier breaking off. Captain Seres stated that it was a most beautiful spot, with the blue of the water merging into the gleaming whiteness of .the . icebergs, and the glacier plunging' down;. the mountainside under'the water of Vtbe; lake. Some of the icebergs, 'he said; were as big as a" good-sized house. ■ ■■■■ .-.;. i ;*'To get at.it;" he :said, "our. men had a two days' journey .with;. packhorses;from Makaroa to their . base camp and following that a two days' journey on foot over Otoko Pass." The lake:was ; come up*n.accidentally, and personally ;:he had never heard of it "before.: The , country in that locality was iot thoroughly mapped, although the main ridges were given. The near-est-.habitation: was Okuru township. ;in:the- operations of . the various parties in the fax ..back country- of New Zealand/they had encountered«several unnamed flakes in various places. One of: them.was, in , the', yicinity ; of rßuvke Riverji''and/another '. in . the upper reaches of Cox's Poulter,"which had apparently, been formed by a big slip at the time of the 1929 : Arthur's Pass earthquake. Others had been described in that'locality, but that lake-was not reported. .As a matter of fact, the men: had named it after him. f'l have been told,'' said Captain Yeres, "that something :. more -permanent should have been chosen to bear.my name, as the lake may disappear with the next .earthquake." There was a \lot of unmapped country, round those parts.