Auckland Forty Years Ago and Now

Auckland Star, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3, 3 January 1903, Page 1 (Supplement)

Auckland Forty Years Ago and Now

1862—1902.

(By F. G. Ewington.)

XI. But the man in the street asks— What about this beautiful climate that you brag so much about? Has it progressed? I confess to blush for it and Captain Edwin. Like some of us, it certainly is no better lately than it ought to be, but is it worse than it was forty years ago?

In 1862 the climate seemed warmer, more equable and agreeable. We always wore white buckskin or cloth shoes in summer, also white silk coats, and puggarees around our hats, with streamers 6r a veil at the back. It was a common apparel at Christmas time, but now at this sea-

son we sometimes wear top coats in the evenings,and a portion of our winter clothes in the day-time. Strange to say, the climate seems to have been worse since the Seddon Government engaged Captain Edwin as meteorologist. Why is it? A friend of mine told me confidentially the other day that "it will soon be all up with us, because a twenty mile block of ice has been found near the South Pole, and it will go on increasing until it is so big and heavy that it will topple over, capsize the planet and swamp the lot of usf As it was told to me in the conventional confidence of a private conversation. I hope the gentle reader will treat it in the same spirit, and on no account tell it in Gath or publish it in the streets of Askelon.

But there can be no doubt that the ,sun is getting cooler and cooler. I wear a much thicker top coat than I did, and we certainly do not get such nice ripe peaches as we did forty years ago. Critics may say: "Oh, it's all bunkum, your blood is getting- thinner," to which I reply that my skin is getting thicker. However, Dr. Maudsley says, in his "Body and Will," writing on the disintegrating process going on in the world: "The nations that have risen high in complexity' of development will degenerate and be broken up, to have their places taken by less complex associations of inferior individuals; they in turn will yield place pler and feebler unions of still more degraded beings; species after species of animals and plants will first degenerate, and then become extinct, as the governing conditions of life render it impossible for them to continue the struggle for existence; a few scattered families of degraded human beings living, perhaps, in snow huts near the equator, very much as the Esquimaux live now near the Pole, will represent the last wave of the receding tide of human exist-/ ence before its final extinction, until at last a frozen earth, incapable of cultivation, is left without energy to produce a living "particle of any sort, and so death itself is dead."

It id by no means certain that this process of natural decay will go on, because Scripture and scientists showthat there is an equal chance of the world coming to a premature and violent end, the elements being melted with fervent heat, either by the earth's concussion with another planet, or the fall of a comet into the sun. It is really astonishing what an amount of heat can be generated by concussion. For instance, if the reader has ever been entrusted by hi 3 wife with a latch-key, gone home very late, and, fumbling for lucifer matches, has run his head against 'the edge of an open door, he will remember how extremely hot it made him. Passing over the strong language he addressed to the door and the matches, which would have shocked polite society, let him multiply his head by the size of the earth and his pace by 68,000 miles an hour, the rate our planet travels, and then he will realise what we mean. Tyndall has told us that a 7121b. weight falling 100 ft. generates as much heat as would, if it could be gathered up, restore the weight to the 100 ft. height. ..

But, as the preachers say, "to return from this digression": We were discussing our climate, which is undeservedly losing its good character. So far as. I can gather from Sir James Hector and others, there is not much perceptible change. We still get 176 wet days per annum in Auckland, and tne average daily temperature in the North Island is 7 degrees higher than London.

Writing of wet days—the day's rain in Auekand was about 6Jin., but in Nelson one day it rained 9£iu. What would my friend Dr. Bakewell say about "this lovely climate," if he got caught in a soaker like that, without a mackintosh, eh? "-...,

There is one matter relating to this question which indicates progress. It was not until 1859 that systematic observations were undertaken by a department established by Government to take meteorological observations and properly record them for practical use; but now, in 1902, there are established all over the colony stations equipped with suitable instruments, and managed by experts, whose interchange of telegrams enables such an accurate forecast of the weather to be made as lets mariners know when to leave or make for shelter. Thus much property and many lives are saved yearly, and farmers often find the published meteorolofncal reports to be of great 'service. We laugh and joke about Captain Edwin, but weather forecasts in New Zealand have often proved of immense value, and the meteorolosrical department of the State is one which not only indicates progress, but reflects credit upon the Government and people of the colony. (To be Continued.);