On the Changes effected in the Natural Features of a New 

 Country by the Introduction of Civilized Races. By 

 W. T. L. Travers, F.L.S. 



(PART I.) 



[Lecture delivered at the Colonial Museum, Wellington, August 7, 1869.] 



In attempting to compress within the limits of a lecture so broad a subject as 

 the character and extent of the changes effected by civilized man in the physical 

 features and organic life of new countries, I am aware that I have undertaken 

 no ordinary task, and on this ground alone I should have to crave your 

 indulgence ; but when, added to its inherent difficulties, I venture to state 

 that my usual avocations are not akin to such investigations, I trust I 

 may have a still further claim upon your good nature. In discussing 

 the subject which I propose to bring under your notice, it is necessary 

 that I should call your attention to the position which, so far as investi- 

 gation has yet afforded light upon it, man has occupied on this globe 

 from the most ancient times, for it must be manifest that although man, in his 

 rudest stages of life, must long be dependent upon spontaneous productions for 

 his means of subsistence, and that it is not until the arts of civilization have 

 been considerably advanced, that he is able to bring under his dominion, more 

 than a very limited number of the varied productions which are made Lo minister 

 to his wants, or to his luxuries, yet nevertheless, in an enquiry like the present, 

 we must take into account his primitive condition of existence. It has been well 

 observed by a modern writer of great power, that " there are few scientific 

 questions exciting so much interest as the origin and antiquity of man, and 

 that, nevertheless, general as the interest is, there is no subject So furtively 

 studied, and so unfairly dealt with." The same writer then shows that 

 the influence of theological ideas has induced the great mass of enquirers 

 to approach the subject with doubt and hesitation, and that even the 

 learned societies of Europe exhibit an " uneasy tendei'ness " in dealing 

 with it ; and yet he points out how infinitely more important it is to acquire 

 a knowledge of the origin, present condition, and probable future of man, than 

 it is to possess the most intimate acquaintance with any of the other biological 

 problems presented for our solutioD. And he argues that " if there be any 

 irreverence in dealing with such questions as man's origin, antiquity, and 

 destiny, that irreverence must rest with those who would circumscribe the 

 range of reason, and seek by unworthy clamour to deter the human intellect 

 from arriving at some conception, however faint, of those laws by which the 

 Creator has chosen to sustain the phenomena of this marvellous universe. 

 That man's relations to external nature, his relations to his God, and his 

 relations to his fellow men, determine at once the range of his knowledge and 

 the sum of his obligations ; and that unless these relations be tmderstood (and 

 this is what science is always striving after), there never can be a complete 

 fulfilment of the duties they involve. That it thus becomes truly pitiable to 

 hear from certain quarters their misrepresentations of scientific aims and 

 scientific conclusions. That, in fact, it is easier to bear than to hear them ; 

 and that one can scarcely avoid the conviction, that those who can misrepresent 

 the opinions of others, in order to strengthen their own arguments, would have 



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