MAN v. NATURE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 154, 5 June 1942, Page 15

MAN v. NATURE

New Winter Course Series From Station 3YA

M* they say, is what he eats, and what he eats largely depends on where he lives. A lack of calcium may give him bad teeth, and we are told that an absence of vitamin B1 will make him nervy, bad-tempered, and perhaps pugnacious. The sudder collapse of the Vandal Empire has been ascribed to the effect of a too hasty change of diet and habits on a people who were used to the cold and cabbages of North Europe and who passed too quickly to the sunshine and dates of North Africa. Nowadays scientific research is increasingly directed to the control of man’s environment. With relentless determination, and wherever he sees them, man sets out to overcome the obstacles that nature seems to have put in his path. But he cannot always tell how and where his environment is going to shape him. The old method of treating history as a series of events shaped by men and ideas has largely gone. Now the economic and geographic factors are so largely stressed that man is often regarded as a pawn in the hands of inexorable forces. The interdependence of geography and history can be traced from the early days when civilisation developed in the great river valleys of the world. The new series of Winter Course talks from 3YA entitled Covering Canterbury, which begins on Wednesday, June 10, deals with the various environmental factors that have influenced the history and development of Canterbury. The series will be conducted by Kenneth B. Cumberland, who is going to interview a panel of nine speakers, all members of the New Zealand Geographical Society. Weekly discussions will deal with such factors as the physical set up, the change in vegetation fromm natural to cultural, early settlement, why and how the various parts of Canterbury have developed as they have, and other related topics. This series should be of interest not only to Canterbury people but to all New Zealanders.