Newman.—Speculations on Physiological Changes. 87 
The pail system can never compete in completeness with water carriage, 
but it would be better than the present one in Wellington. For some por- 
tions, such as the suburban and hilly parts of this town, it would be 
specially advantageous, with water carriage for the remaining parts. 
An outfall for the reclaimed and adjacent portions of the town could be 
formed as far beyond Pipitea Point as money would permit, and the Te Aro 
end provided with an outfall towards or at Jerningham Point. 
The discharge of drains from even a pail system town would not be 
desirable to have poured into a bay opposite it. 
Wellington would do well to protect with jealous care the beautiful bay 
that is its pride and source of prosperity. 
Art. V.—Speculations on the Physiological Changes Obtaining in the 
English Race when Transplanted to New Zealand. By A. K. 
Newman, M.B. 
[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 30th Sept., 1876.] 
Having studied at odd times the changes produced in English people by 
a residence in this colony, and also peculiarities in their offspring, an 
account of the points which interested me, and my speculations on these 
matters, make up this paper. I regret that I have been unable to weld 
them into a compact mass, and that consequently this paper is not so 
continuous as is desirable in a communication to a scientific society. 
Science teaches us that all plants and animals are acted upon by the 
surrounding conditions—in other phrase, by their environment—and that 
any change in the environment causes many changes in the organism ; and 
therefore, in studying the changes obtaining in an immigrant, it is abso- 
lutely necessary that we should possess some knowledge of the environment, 
Of the 100,000,000 square miles of water on the globe, 25,000,000 square 
miles are in the northern, and 75,000,000 square miles—three times as 
much—in the southern hemisphere. From this vast sheet vapour is 
constantly rising, and the enormous amount of this vapour is demonstrated 
by the fact that off Cape Horn, and in other parts of the southern ocean, 
the barometer stands permanently at a low level, ranging between 28° and 
29°—i.e., an inch or more below that in the northern hemisphere. Dr. 
Ballot says that in about 40° N. the average barometric pressure is over 
760 millimetres, but in 50? S. it falls to 750 millimetres. These observations 
are deduced from an immense mass of barometric readings. 
In New Zealand we see a steady lowering of pressure from Mongonui, 
in the north, to Invercargill, in the south, and the presence of this vapour 
