1839 - Walton, John. Twelve Months Residence in New Zealand - CHAPTER III. Magnitude, p 10-11

       
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  1839 - Walton, John. Twelve Months Residence in New Zealand - CHAPTER III. Magnitude, p 10-11
 
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CHAPTER III. Magnitude.

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CHAPTER III.

Magnitude.

BUT although the healthfulness of a country is of very great importance to the man who has selected it for his residence, it must possess other recommendations to render it a desirable

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place for one to pass one's life in. Docs New Zealand possess such recommendations? Does it open to the intending emigrant a fair prospect of being able to make an advantageous use of that health, which, from the excellence of its climate, he may expect to enjoy? I hesitate not to answer this question in the affirmative; nor will the reader I think dissent from my opinion, when he weighs the evidence in its favour, which I now proceed, after briefly noticing the magnitude of the country, to lay before him.

In estimating the resources of a country, towards which the tide of emigration is directed, its extent naturally challenges our attention. New Zealand consists of three islands, the northern and the southern, which are separated by a strait a few leagues broad. It is situated between the 34th and 48th parallels of south latitude, and 166th and 180th degrees of east longitude. Its extent from north to south is more than eight hundred geographical miles, and in average breadth it is upwards of one hundred miles. It embraces, therefore, an extent of surface full equal to that of Great Britain and Ireland; and when it is considered, that in the latter country, the population amounts to upwards of thirty millions, while in the former it does not exceed, including natives and strangers, one hundred and fifty thousand, an idea may be formed of the ample room for millions of emigrants, which the capacious bosom of New Zealand will afford.


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