Charles Heaphy and the settlement of New Zealand
A In the early 19th century, the London-based New Zealand Company was set up to promote the colonisation of the North and South Islands of New Zealand. It hoped to encourage British migrants to settle there and buy land. To do this, it needed to capture the public imagination, and used paintings and drawings of the landscape for this purpose. Eighteen was a young age for someone to become a hired artist and explorer for this kind of major land-trading company, but Charles Heaphy took on this role after 18 months producing technical drawings for a British railway company, and a further two years studying occasionally at the Royal Academy's school of painting. His family had possibly lacked the financial means to enable him to continue at the Academy, but he was luckily introduced to someone in the New Zealand Company. Heaphy was offered, and accepted, a position on 6 May 1839—three days before the Company's ship, Tory, departed Plymouth for New Zealand with its cargo of settlers.
B From his diaries, we can see that Heaphy was enthusiastic about this role. In addition to employment and position, it offered him the chance to explore a relatively little-known country. There was, however, some urgency placed on the young artist, as a large consignment of settlers was due to leave England a few months later, and so he needed to explore the country before they departed as efficiently as he could. His record of his travels through New Zealand is less comprehensive than those of some contemporaries, but what he did end up committing to paper and in paintings left an often vivid impression of travelling through various parts of the country.
C As is so often the case, though, his high expectations were dampened on arrival. On first sighting New Zealand's South Island, Heaphy commented that the high mountain ranges seemed to leave no space for farming, and that the country in general hardly seemed worth settling. However, Heaphy hoped there might be other agricultural opportunities somewhere in the interior. Queen Charlotte Sound was the first place Heaphy visited. He remained unconvinced for years afterwards that it possessed the greatest harbour in the country but accepted that the few patches of fertile ground in the area were insufficient for a major settlement. From there, he went to Port Nicholson and was clearly impressed.
D However, his interpretations of this and many of the other locations he travelled through in the country were possibly not as 'neutral' as they may appear. His choice of scenes, and the organisation of elements in many of his paintings suggest that his artistic view of the landscape was perhaps restricted by the requirements placed on him by his employer, the New Zealand Company. Indeed, his paintings of Port Nicholson could easily be mistaken for paintings of English country villages.
E Although Heaphy travelled widely around New Zealand, his explorations frequently were superficial at best, and there is a sense from Heaphy's records that as he observed the North Island, he and his colleagues' minds had already been made up regarding the superiority of Port Nicholson. This was the site they nominated for the New Zealand Company's headquarters.
F As ever more New Zealand Company migrants were being tempted to settle in New Zealand, the pressing demand for land forced officials to reconsider regions that they had previously ruled out. Heaphy accompanied one journey north from Port Nicholson to assess what parts of the country might be useful to establish new townships and farming districts on. One of the first places Heaphy's team went to was Porirua. They found that the hills between Port Nicholson and Porirua were easy to cross and did not form the barrier they had expected, and were also of exceedingly rich and fertile soil, making them a potential location for agriculture. Heaphy depicted this possible place for settlement as having the beautiful appearance of a park, and thought most of it was fit for cultivation. Its harbour was also suitably deep.
G From there Heaphy sailed further north, eventually reaching the Manawatu Plains. His assessment was again favourable, praising the level aspect of the plains and the way they were watered by numerous rivers. These, he said, were deep enough for the passage of small ships. Writing to the New Zealand Company, he was confident that the countryside there was well adapted for settlement, but explained that this could only be accomplished by the growth of the population of places already colonised. In the future, he envisaged, the region would become a major agricultural centre.
H As for the Taranaki region, Heaphy was even more impressed. His artistic response, Mt Egmont from the Southward, shows an image of the mountain that became his most famous painting. Despite the work being highly symmetrical, and the proportions being exaggerated, Heaphy turned this scene into a great piece of artistic propaganda. The foreground, with its small cleared section above a sandy shore, would have looked inviting to any would-be farmer, as would the forest in the middle ground, suggesting a ready supply of trees which could be exploited for the construction of homes and ships.
I Other beneficial aspects of living in New Zealand were discovered by Heaphy as he travelled around. He was convinced it had the best climate in the world, and claimed that since the formation of the first Company settlement in Port Nicholson, almost no-one there had fallen sick. Indeed, Heaphy boasted that during his explorations, he had slept outside in all seasons and had never experienced a day's illness, certainly not the respiratory kind common in congested English cities. He certainly concluded that for anyone migrating to New Zealand, good prospects awaited.
Why don't we sleep?
A Fifty-six million prescriptions for sleeping medication were handed out by doctors in America last year. Yet remarkably little is being done to understand insomnia's root causes. Socially and economically, the undertreatment of sleeplessness is hugely expensive. The Institute of Medicine, an independent scientific advisory group, estimates nearly 20 percent of all major accidents on the road are associated with driver sleepiness. The loss in terms of productivity within the workplace is even higher, costing billions. Then there are the softer costs which remain unmeasured but still exist; for example, the damaged relationships with others. If other medical problems were causing such widespread harm, governments would act, but US authorities contribute only about $230 million a year for the funding of sleep research, comparable to the amount that the manufacturers of popular sleeping pills spent in three months on advertising. Currently most medical school students get no more than four hours of training on sleep disorders; some get none.
B If we don't know why we can't sleep, it's in part because we don't really know why we need to sleep in the first place. We know that we divide it between periods of deep-wave sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, when the brain is as active as when we're awake, but our voluntary muscles are paralyzed. We know that all mammals sleep, and that there are some insects and reptiles that only half sleep, in order to remain aware of their environment and predators.
C The predominant theory of sleep is that the brain demands it. Recently, researchers at Harvard, led by Robert Stickgold, tested undergraduates on various aptitude tests, allowed them to nap, then tested them again. They found that those who had engaged in REM sleep subsequently performed better in pattern recognition tasks, such as grammar, while those who slept deeply were better at memorization.
D Such studies suggest that memory consolidation may be one function of sleep. Giulio Tononi, a sleep researcher at the University of Wisconsin, published an interesting twist on this theory a few years ago. His study showed that the sleeping brain seems to delete redundant or unnecessary synapses or connections. So the purpose of sleep may be to help us remember what's important, by letting us forget what's not.
E Sleep is likely to have physiological purposes too. Some researchers have found that sleep deprivation impedes wound healing in rats, and others have suggested that sleep helps boost the immune system and control infection. But these studies are not conclusive. At Stanford University, William Dement, co-founder of the Stanford Sleep Medicine Center, explains what he knows after 50 years of research, about the reason we sleep. 'As far as I know,' he said, 'the only reason we need to sleep that is really, really solid is because we get sleepy.'
F The Stanford clinic does more than 3,000 overnight sleep studies a year. Their main diagnostic tool is the polysomnogram, the main element of which is the electroencephalograph (EEG), which captures the electrical output from a patient's brain. As the EEG records a person's sleep patterns, the polysomnogram technicians also measure body temperature, muscle activity, eye movement, and breathing. Then they look over the data for signs of abnormal sleep. When a person has narcolepsy, for instance, they plunge from wakefulness into REM sleep without any intermediate steps. However, Clete Kushida, the clinic director, told me he can spot most people's sleep problems right at the intake interview. 'There are those who cannot keep their eyes open, and those who just speak of their exhaustion but don't actually fall asleep. The former often have sleep apnea where they stop breathing. The latter have true insomnia.'
G In sleep apnea, muscle relaxation allows the soft tissue of the throat to close, shutting off the sleeper's air passage. When the brain realizes it is not getting oxygen, it sends a signal to the body to wake up. The sleeper awakes, inhales, and sleep returns. Apnea is a serious problem but only indirectly a sleep disease. True insomniacs are people who either can't get to, or can't stay asleep for any evident reason.
H While apnea can be treated with a device that forces air down the sleeper's throat to keep the airways open, the treatment of classic insomnia is not so clear cut. Acupuncture may help. It has long had this role in Asian medicine and is being studied at the University of Pittsburgh sleep center now. Typically in the US, insomnia is treated in two ways. First come the sleeping pills. Though safer than they once were, they can still lead to psychological addiction. 'Many users complain that their sleeping-pill sleep seems different, and they feel unfocussed on waking. Sleeping pills are not a natural way to sleep,' points out Charles Czeisler, director of the Harvard Health and Safety Group.
I The second step in treating insomniacs is usually cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In CBT, a psychologist teaches insomniacs to think about sleep problems as manageable, and to practice good 'sleep hygiene': sleep in a dark room, go to bed only when you are sleepy, don't exercise beforehand. Studies have shown that CBT is more effective than sleeping pills at treating long-term insomnia, but many sufferers aren't convinced. 'Some people continue in my experience to struggle,' says John Winkelman, another sleep center director. 'They're not super-satisfied with their sleep.'
Flower power
A Why do we give people flowers? To offer condolence to those who are grieving. To celebrate. To woo. To ask for forgiveness. We all know intuitively that there is something psychologically powerful about giving flowers; in fact, few objects provoke such a universal emotional response. In the US alone, the flower industry is now worth about $5bn a year – which suggests that, at the very least, they service a compelling human need.
B Recent studies at the Department of Psychology at Rutgers State University of New Jersey investigated claims that flowers are unique among living organisms in their ability to induce profound changes in our emotional state. As the first part of their research, the Rutgers team visited 150 women in their homes. Each was presented with a variety of gifts such as flowers, fruit or sweets. The women were unaware that the study was about the effect of the flowers on their emotions. They were told that it was a study about their daily moods, and that they would receive a gift in return for taking part. Following the presentation of the gift, those receiving flowers were assessed as displaying a much more positive mood than those who got other gifts, and this effect lasted for several days. After receiving flowers, they were also more willing to answer questions concerning their social circle and intimate conversations with friends and family. The results suggest that flowers influence our secondary socio-emotional behaviours, as well as having a strong effect on our immediate emotional expression.
C In the second study, the psychologists observed participants being handed single flowers, or alternative gifts, in a constrained and stressful situation – inside an elevator. Contrary to predictions regarding gender differences, both men and women presented with flowers were more likely to smile, to stand closer and to initiate conversation. Several subjects who were given the alternative gift then learnt that flowers were also being handed out, and returned to the elevator and demanded a flower. The scientists used elevators for this study precisely because the most typical behaviour in sparsely occupied elevators is for people to retreat to opposite corners. The subjects who received flowers, however, closed up that space to a considerable extent – indicating that the flowers not only induced a strong positive mood, but brought a significant affiliation among people who had never previously met.
D The third study involved regularly sending flowers to a selected sample of men and women. The researchers found not only a profound elevation of mood, but also reliable improvements in other measures of cognitive function, like memory. In this series of experiments, some participants produced such extraordinary emotional displays that the psychologists were totally unprepared for them. Subjects gave spontaneous hugs and kisses to the people who delivered the flowers, and sent invitations to the psychologists to come to their homes for refreshments.
E Various evolutionary hypotheses attempt to explain the remarkably powerful psychological effect of flowers. One is that our aesthetic preferences for fertile locations and growing things stem from prehistory, when these clues in our environment could mean the difference between starvation and survival. We may have become hardwired to respond positively to flowers because for early man, finding them in a particular location predicted future food supplies and possibly a better place to rear children. Yet the flaw in this argument is that the showy flowers which humans seem to find most visually attractive are generally found on those plants which yield no edible products.
F The Rutgers psychologists’ findings show that the various physical attributes of flowers combine to directly affect our emotions through multi-channel interactions. We have evolved preferences for the particular colours, textures, patterned symmetries and specific floral odours which influence our moods. Indeed, previous research has established that popular perfumes, which often have a floral ‘top-note’, will actually reduce depression. The origins of these inclinations may well be as the evolutionary theories suggest: the patterned symmetries of flowers can be detected easily as a recognisable signal within a wide variety of visual arrays, and a response to certain colour tones is important in finding ripe fruit against a leafy background. But, claim the Rutgers team, these preferences have long been separated from their primary evolutionary use, and become rewarding to us more generally. Thus plants with preferred colours, shapes and odours – despite having no other products – would therefore be protected and dispersed.
G The Rutgers study suggests that flowers may have actually evolved to exploit their peculiar impact on humans. The team’s theory proposes a plant-human co-evolution, or even domestication, based on the intense emotional rewards that flowers provide. The idea that flowering plants, with no known food or other basic survival value to man, have co-evolved with us by exploiting an emotional niche instead, is very much like the scenario presented for the evolution of dogs. Flowers may be the plant equivalent of ‘companion animals’. If this is true, then there is a very real sense in which, when you next give flowers, they are using you just as much as you are using them.