N.Z. MOUNTAINS

Grey River Argus, 13 August 1937, Page 6

N.Z. MOUNTAINS

Exploration Work The New Zealand Alpine Club has appointed a special sub-committee to collect historic records of all kinds relating to the discovery and exploration of New Zealand peaks and glaciers. Although the excellent journals of the Alpine Club and of the Canterbury Mountaineering Club preserve most of the current records of mountaineering travel, there is much of Alpine interest which does not find its way into either journal. The reminiscences and obituary notices of early settlers, published in the daily Press from time to time, frequently throw light on the first exploration of the mountains. The letters and diaries of these settlers, and more particularly of surveyors and explorers, often give even more intimate and detailed accounts of their early struggles in the New Zealand Alps. Frequently faded photographs will show some change in alpine photography in the last three decades. Small lakes are sometimes shown in the early maps and photographs where now only glacial moraine is seen. Early photographs of the snouts of New Zealand glaciers show that many if these rivers of ice have been retreating in the last forty years. These and any other objects and facts of interest historically to mountaineers and the general public are being collected by each district section of the Alpine Club, and are being grouped by the secretary of the Historic Records Sub-Commit-tee, Mr R. S. Odell of the Parliamentary Library.