THE WEATHER.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIV, Issue 10705, 15 July 1895, Page 6

THE WEATHER.

The sun on Saturday morning was powerful enough to melt a good deal of the snow, but in the evening it froze again. So much had fallen, however, that it will probably be some days before it ail disappears. The tramcara on the various lines resumed their running. On the New Brighton lino six horses were employed to bring a single car from New Brighton to Christchurch in the morning, as the state of the rails rendered the task too great for a smaller number. As the day advanced, however, the ice and snow which filled the grooves of the rails thawed, and running was easier. The men employed by the Winter Work Committee were engaged during the day in clearing enow from the streets in various parts of the city. . Yesterday light showers of ram fell during the day, and also in the evening. The streets and footpaths were soon in a slushy condition, and by the evening a great part of the snow had disappeared. Lake Ellesmere was running out freely all day on Friday, and had then scoured out a large outlet. The weather being calm and frosty, there was every prospect of the level being reduced and immediate relief afforded to the unfortunate Lake Flat settlers. , Mr Arthur Hope, owner or Richmond Station, Lake Tekapo, came down to Timaru on Saturday, gave some information about the condition of the Mackenzie Country. Mr Hope made his way up to the station intending to try to get some long-woolled rams down to the road by boat. The rams were in a paddock three miles from the lake. With immense labour in breaking down a track a party got them to within a mile of the water, and then a fresh fall of snow came on, and they had to give it up. Each snowfall has been measured at the station and it totals eix feet. It is not lying so thick aa that now, but is three feet deep at tba edge of the lake, and gets deeper os one leaves the water. When the heavy snow came on four or five thousand ewes made their way to the edge or the lake and are there now, walking backwards and forwards along the track they have made, with a swarm of hawks and gulls flying about them, waiting to take the eyes and tongues from those that drop. The last task undertaken on the station before Mr Hope left, was to search for the station horses, the men having'rigaed up snow shoes for the purpose. Mr Hope’s experience may be taken as a sample of what other stationowners in the Mackenzie havehad to endure. Helefc the station on Monday by boat, and on Tuesday, with two others, esiayed to walk from the. Tekapo Hotel to Burke s Pass. They made three miles in two hours and a half, and then turned back, seeing that it was impossible to got through; they were four hours in returning, the drift filling up their track. On Tuesday night three inches more snow fell. On Wednesday Mr Hope, Mr E. Cowan and Mr C. Kerr started on 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 bad to ba plunged through. The snow outside was not so deep, but the crust would not bear the horses, yet was too strong for them to work through. In some places they had a great struggle to get through drifts six feet deep, both men and horses having to do’their share of jumping on the snow to make a track. Mr Hope heard of a party of a dozen or so from Black Forest who were nearly losing several of their number when within a few miles of the Pass, and they were only got in by a rescue party, some of them froat-bitteu. As to the outlook for the sheep, Mr Hope has the gloomiest possible view. A correspondent at Waifcaki writes to the Otago Daily Times aa follows on the effect of the snowstorms on the flocks : “ I read some accounts 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 eighty dead or dying not more than thirty hours after the first fall of snow, about June 15. Besides, if sheep did struggle through alive after a few weeks of being snowed in, they would cut little or no wool, and would bo unlikely ever to recover from the effects of such a struggle. I have known the Waitaki for over thirty years, and have never seen '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 aa low aa 3d eg Fahr. on July 10, and over most of the country the enow is lying from twenty inches to any depth in the drifts—twenty or thirty feet.” The Arrowtowa correspondent of the same paper says that on Thursday night the frost was so keen that the ink in the telegraph office was frozen and ink froze in the pea while writing.