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The article presents a response by the author to a article by Jane M, Soons, criticizing author's article "Raised Submarine Canyons: An Explanatory Hypothesis," published in the 1966 issue of the journal "Annals." According to the author, Soons has criticized the canyon paper on two different counts. In all but one case the charge of error turns out conclusively to be her error, compounded by the gratuitous contribution of several new errors. The second charge concerns the interpretation of ideas presented on the nature and origin of fiords. Her treatment of what was said on the origin of fiords is misleading both in what was included and, especially, in what was omitted.

Annual variations are often more brutal for nuptiality than they are for other demographic phenomena. Short-term economic movements, in particular, seem to have a more direct impact. In the long run, however, nuptiality is generally considered as a much more stable factor than, say, fertility which has undergone profound changes in all industrialized countries over the past hundred years. In this article the social scientists will attempt to study these recent trends in the light of longer-term ones, by comparing nuptiality movements in four countries: Canada, the United States, Australia and New Zealand. In this paper, they study the nuptiality of birth cohorts by calculating the proportion ever-married at age 50, and mean age at first marriage. Data are not always strictly comparable between one census and another, especially in Canada and the United States where geographical coverage has varied through time. However, the numbers involved were small. Moreover, the definition of marital status has not been changed, at least not the basic distinction between single and ever-married. Through a study of nuptiality trends for the single for about a hundred different birth cohorts, they will attempt to determine whether attitudes towards marriage have changed. But first, they must eliminate the structural effects which affect the phenomenon studied. For instance, marriage becomes more difficult for women and female nuptiality decreases when there is a scarcity of potential male partners.

Recent levels and trends of mortality and fertility of the minority Maori population of New Zealand are analysed. On this basis two projections for the year 1976 are presented, the first assuming a further rise in life expectation, which has already increased rapidly over the last two decades and the other that both mortality and the consistently high fertility levels will be reduced. Last century the decrease of the Maori population appeared to prove that culture contact led to the "racial suicide" of "inferior races." Their plight was widely recognized both in New Zealand and abroad, and gave rise to a series of speculative, even bizarre, essays dealing with the "Passing of the Maori." The sole concern of this paper is with the components of the rapid Maori growth rate-- mortality and fertility. Once these variables have been analysed it will be possible to speculate about future short-term trends of growth. At each census date some age group of males showed higher survival rates than did the same section of the female population. At the earlier period, survivorship levels were lower among females than among males over a wider span of ages, but mainly at childbearing and post-childbearing ages.

The article deals with the recent widespread increase in marriage rates in the Western world. A convenient method of studying aspects of the recent history of marriage is provided by easily available data regarding the proportion of single persons at various dates. The article uses these data to disentangle two effects in the marriage boom: the extent to which the cohorts whose marriages have formed the main contribution to the marriage boom are marrying more, i.e. whether the proportion who will ultimately remain single is likely to be lower than in previous generations, the extent to which the mean age at marriage of these generations is likely to fall below that of their predecessors. The raw material for the computations to be presented consists of the proportions single at two recent dates for each of thirteen countries used in the study. The countries included in the study are Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England and Wales, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. The study from the proportion single shows that both reduction in the age at marriage and an increase in the proportion marrying at least once in the course of their lives is occurring in several countries.

The article presents estimates of New Zealand Maori vital rates from the mid-nineteenth century to World War I. Recently, some South Pacific populations appear to have undergone rapid declines in mortality after decades of very high death rates. The available evidence suggests that mortality levels increased after contact with Europeans reaching peaks in the nineteenth century, particularly during epidemics, then declined gradually until the period of accelerated decrease after World War II. Probably the birth rate was, under normal circumstances, reasonably high. To obtain estimated vital rates for the population as a whole one must use enumeration data as a base. There are many methods available to carry out such an analysis, but the minimum requirement is the availability of at least one and preferably two censuses with a published breakdown by quinquennial age groups. Moreover, the populations under analysis should, in principle, be closed and stable. For a "closed" population it is not necessary to assume that the structure is quasi-stable if one uses for estimates the survivorship of cohorts between censuses as a basis. However, there is the problem of intercensal differences in the quality of enumeration for the same cohort.

This article presents a fertility analysis of New Zealand marriage cohorts. Of the two possible lines of investigation that the vital statistics offer for a cohort analysis, namely, birth cohorts and marriage cohorts, the present study is concerned with marriage cohorts. Some results will be summarized in Section III under three heads, one, fertility rates specific for marriage duration and for birth order; second, parity progression ratios for cohorts of virtually completed fertility; and third, "timing" of births of order 1 to 4. The limitations of the present report which is part of a wider project should be stated at once: One, until an analysis of the same material in terms of birth cohorts has been made, the relative merits of studying the experience of either marriage cohorts or birth cohorts cannot be fully assessed. Second, the question of spacing has been neglected for the present. The published material alone throws no light on the question of significant differentials in spacing of births of consecutive order between families of different size. third, the present analysis essentially disregards nuptiality, although, as will appear later, some results lend point to the contention that it is only a combination of fertility and nuptiality experience that will lead to an adequate evaluation of observed variations.

The articles reports that the schools of New Zealand were copied from their prototypes in Great Britain. Education standards were modeled on the revised Code for the elementary schools in Great Britain. The aim of the Minister of Education is to give the children of New Zealand quality training not inferior to that obtained in the primary schools of England and Scotland. The derived character is reinforced by the outflow of emigrants from the British Isles.

The appearance of a new hypothesis offering an alternative to current explanations for a group of landforms is an event of some significance, and one that both demands and deserves careful appraisal. This is very much the case with the hypothesis presented in the article "Raised Submarine Canyons: An Explanatory Hypothesis," by J.H. Winslow in the 1966 issue of the journal "Annals," as the author himself recognizes. Winslow has presented a competent summary of the evidence for the existence and probable mode of formation of submarine canyons. The present writer is particularly concerned with the application of the hypothesis to the New Zealand area.

The historic trend of rural and urban fertility in the South Island of New Zealand conforms closely to the experience over time of other world areas of similar socio-economic evolution, in particular Australia, the United States, and Western Europe. In the period from 1881 to 1936 a widespread decline occurred in both rural and urban fertility. There was a subsequent resurgence lasting to 1951 but thereafter, especially in the 1960's, a new phase of decline emerged. Meanwhile, an appreciable narrowing of rural-urban, inter-rural, and inter-urban fertility differences has taken place. Within the larger metropolitan centers, however, pronounced suburban variations are evident, a major contrast existing between the downtown pattern of low fertility and the outlying residential districts of high fertility. Both long term and recent shifts have been causatively linked with changing cultural attitudes deriving from the emergence of an overwhelmingly urban-dwelling society in place of the rural agricultural, pioneer society still predominant in 1881. Fertility differences at the regional and local level are explained by reference to a wide range of cultural variables, chiefly socio-economie status, religion, marital status, and other sociological circumstances peculiar to urban as distinct from rural ways of living.

Assuming that a general process of daminance ranking has take place through the improvement of internal accessibility, a simple model depicting the evolution of the spatial patterns of New Zealand port locations is developed to provide a standard for gauging changes in the status of seaports. By applying the idealized-type sequence to the distribution of New Zealand ports at different times it is shown that Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton, and Dunedin have grown faster than the other ports. The full realization of the process of dominance ranking with the concentration of activities on a single port, however, has been hindered by local vested interests, the perishable nature of some of the commodities handled, and the interference of the central government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governmental influence is one of the cultural causal processes affecting the geography of agriculture. In New Zealand where agricultural socialism is well developed, there ate numerous examples of this influence in agriculture, such as the program designed to encourage wheat growing so as to lessen the dependence on overseas imports. A complex system of state control has developed which provides growers with attractive prices and yet, at the same time, protects consumers from inflated price for bread and flour, As a result of the comprehensive governmental control, wheat growing in New Zealand is frequently thought to be largely a response to state incentives. This hypothesis cannot be substantiated, Returns from competing systems of land utilization are influential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the low-value housing in New Zealand. Problems associated with maturity and old in the urban settlements; Transformation of pasture, orchard and market gardening land into districts of suburban housing; Youthfulness of European settlement relative to the growth of towns and cities.

New Zealand is young in length of European settlement. Although the sites of one or two towns are more than 100 years old, all urban development has taken place in less than a century. Because of the apparent uniformity among New Zealand towns an analysis of the functions which they perform becomes of particular importance as a means of differentiating dearly among them. As a result this aspect of urban geography probably takes on an even greater significance in New Zealand than in most other countries. It is therefore of interest to distinguish the kinds of New Zealand towns on the basis of their functions and to classify the urban areas of this small country.

Describes the climate of New Zealand. Contrasts in rainfall totals; Division of the climate; Climatic boundaries.