Newman.—Is New Zealand a Healthy Country ? 509 
chest affections. Cement-workers suffer much, and so do all engaged in 
the making of pottery. With the — of mines will come multi- 
plicity of accidents and deadly disasters. 
(10.) Our great Distance from the bin. Haunts of Men. 
Separated as we are by thousands of miles of ocean and fresh breezes we 
are necessarily in less danger of catching our neighbours' diseases. 
: (11.) Soil. 
Apart from the foregoing causes of a lessened death-rate must be noted 
the effect of soil and climate. These * Summer Isles of Eden lying in dark 
purple seas” possess almost everywhere the most perfect natural drainage. 
The swamps are few, and are fast disappearing. They seem almost harm- 
less. Among the white people malarious fevers are not caught, though 
many dwell on the edge of these swamps. Men work in them and never 
get ague as in the fens at Home or in the Maremma in Western Italy, or 
jungle fever as in Asia and Africa. Colonists work and live among swamps 
and in forests, and get no evils except rheumatic and chest complaints. 
They dig in swamps, but the black upturned humus, though composed of 
decaying and decayed vegetable matter, brings them no harm. ‘“ No flat 
malarian world of reed and rush” troubles the colonist. Neither does the 
soil contain other evils for man. The water flowing through swamps leaves 
it full perhaps of decaying organie matter, but free from germs or parasites 
hurtful to man. The soil and vegetation contain no parasites peculiar to 
New Zealand, nothing like Bilharzia hematobia or Guinea worm. As the 
black population had invaded these isles only a few centuries and was always 
sparse and had few diseases, the soil was scarcely, if at all, polluted, and 
consequently we—the white people—when we dig or plough, upturn a 
virgin soil, and not, as in many countries, a soil full of pep organisms. 
(12.) Climate, 
The climate of these islands, lying in the temperate zone, presents few 
features of note. Stretching as they do through many a league of latitude, 
lying in the path of the antitrades, with a lofty backbone of mountains 
running through each island, the climate is exceedingly equable in each 
district, though that of the districts varies greatly. The changes of climate 
in each have been carefully noted for many years past, and these records 
are embalmed in the pages of these volumes. For our purpose the chief 
points worthy of note are the equability of the various districts, —e.g., the 
continuous dryness and heat of Hawke's Bay and the raininess of Westland, 
and the cold of Southland. There are no dangerous siroccos or typhoons, 
or.pamperos: no pestilential deadly breezes. The winds flowing from the 
uninhabited antarctie regions, or from the equator, waft to us no diseases. 
The continuous heat of the hottest districts is cold when compared with 
