THE MOLYNEUX.

Otago Witness, Issue 2467, 26 June 1901, Page 23

THE MOLYNEUX.

TO THE EDITOR

I Sih, — Your correspondent's article on the Molyneux is most interesting, but one point I should like to correct. He says the Hunter River "reaches back 50 miles as the crow flies, into the pile of mountains over which i Mount Cook dominates." This is not quite the case, because the source of the Hunter is about as far from the Mount Cook group as it is from the head of Lake i Wanaka, '' as the crow flies." Mount Cook itself sends all its water eastwards into Lake Pukaki, and so in^o the Wailaki, and the " pile of mountains " dominated by Mount Cook is really drained on the ea~t by the Wnitaki River via Lakes Ohau and Pukaki, and on the west by Waiho, Cook, Karangarua, and Landsborough Rivers. The Molyneux has no connection whatever with the glacier system of the Mount Cook gioup or the neighbouring peaks, but (as your correspondent rightly, states) it drains t!ie great Aspiring group with its fine glacier and ice fields. The amount of water in the Molyneux, however, which in drawn from perpetual snow and ice is trifling as compared with the Waitaki River, which practic ally draws all its water from the glaciers and snowfields which bound the Mackenzie Plains on the north-west. I have personally explored the sources of a'l the rivers above-mentioned,, except the ! Hunter, a branch of which, however, I once , looked into from a saddle on the Dividing j Range, ascended from Vie Landsborough ( Valley on the Went Coast. j I trust your correspondent will accept my trifling correction to his excellent description of the Molyneux, seeing that it is or.ly a topographical error concerning a part of the country little known except to a few. — I am, etc., } Ahtetjh P. HAErEE. Cliristchurcli, June 11.