Sunset On Franz Josef Glacier.

“Sunset on Franz Josef Glacier,” says a correspondent in the Auckland “Star,” provides a panorama of surpassing wealth and beauty, unrivalled except in the regions of perpetual snow and ice cascades of the Southern Alps. Sunset comes like a cataclysm, transforming the glacier into a labyrinthine maze of colours. The great frozen field varies in colour with surprising frequency, at sunset presenting an ever-changing spectacle in which all colours of the rainbow mingle to create a scene of supreme grandeur. With the setting of the sun, the surrounding snow-clad mountains, towering like mighty sentinels above the ice-field, become tipped with gold, while the glacier itself sparkles like an opalescent sea, and gorgeous colourings defying the pen to describe or the brush to paint. Yet, as one is held spellbound in wonderment, the transformation goes slowly on; the ice pinnacles and crevasses, reflecting to the sun's declining rays, provide a kaleidoscopic spectacle in variegation which reflects the glory of the firmament and which gradually fades away in a sombre grey.