A NEW DEPARTURE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 8787, 8 May 1889, Page 6

A NEW DEPARTURE.

(From the Oamaru Mail.) In Sir Julius Vogel’s novel, “Anno Domini 2000; or. Woman’s Destiny,” it is stated that an enterprising speculator purchases millions of acres of the pumice lands of the North Island and renders them fertile by means of an admixture of clay. Let no man laugh at this prediction, extraordinary though it is. In our time, and in our very midst, a fact quite as remarkable is foreshadowed in an announcement which is contained in an official document referring to a region not far afield. In that document it is stated that as part of the Birch Hill run, on the Mount Cook spur, is already included in the Tasman Glacier reserve, “and the Minister for Lands has ordered four fiftyacre sections to be laid off for settlement purposes which'have not yet been located, the Commissioners recommend that the whole of the remaining portion of the run ’should be included in the Mount Cook reserve and dealt with by the Land Board under the Public Reserves Act.” This is good news for those who are hungering after small plots of land on which to make comfortable homes. The Kurow land may not be of sufficiently good quality to maintain a happy and prosperous population, but there can he no question as to the capabilities of Mount Cook in that direction; and as to the Tasman Glacier—well, it has been discovered that it is—for small settlers, of course—one of the moat desirable spots on earth. There, away from the dust and heat of more ordinary regions—for the climate is delightfully cool, we are told—one may sit under his own vine and figtree. It has bean discovered that the beautiful green appearance of the glacial faces is due to a latent power of fertility which only needs for its development the application of simple scientific methods. It has been observed that the sun’s rays melt the fields of ice, and this is an important fact, which is likely to immortalise the discoverer, for it has led to an idea that by the application of artificial heat the whole of the Alpine regions in this lumpy country may be transformed into veritable Gardens of Eden, and made the home of the grape, the fig, and the pomegranate. On the principle of similis similibus curantur , and in pursuance of the science of hydro-; pathy, it has been found that by the application of hot water to the ice, that inhospitable natural product of a frigid meteorological condition is made to deliquesce, and that the soil is thus laid bare and warmed. The melted ice supplies the water, which is heated by fires that could be kept going continuously on the spot, fed by electricity produced by a process of which we as yet know nothing. Hence would be justified the title “Mount Cook,” which was no doubt given in anticipation of the time when the cooking of the ice, and the subjugation of its cold sterility would be an accomplished fact. The announcement that the Birch Hill station is to be reserved has been attributed to other designs. It has been stated that the object is to play into the hands of the Hermitage Company, with which Messrs Rhodes and Rutherford are connected, for, if the land were icserved, that Company could depasture their sheep “ without money, and without price,” as the Land Company are now doing on that portion of Kurow reserved for settlement. But nobody would believe any such thing of an honest Government.