ii8 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Thus, while the excess rate was as high as 21 to 28 per 1,000 before 

 1860, it has since fallen to one of 13 only, or about one-half. Whatever 

 validity may attach to the method of calculation, the real facts would 

 no doubt show a change in the direction of the table — a decline in the 

 rate of the excess of births over deaths from period to period. The 

 decline in the growth of population is thus not merely the direct effect 

 of a change in immigration, but is connected vdth the birth- and death- 

 rates themselves, although these rates are of course indirectly affected 

 by the amount and proportion of immigration. It would be most im- 

 portant to know what the decline in the birth-rate is by itself, and 

 how far its effects on the growth of population have been mitigated or 

 intensified by changes in the death-rate; but United States records 

 generally give no help on this head. 



Dealing with Australasia in the same way, we have the advantage 

 of a direct comparison of both birth- and death-rates and the rate of 

 the excess of births over deaths. This is done in the following table : 



Birth-rate and Death-rate and Rate of Excess of Births over Deaths in Aus- 

 tralasia for undermentioned Years. 

 [From Mr. Coghlan's Statistics] 



Thus from a high birth-rate forty years ago Australasia has cer- 

 tainly gone down to very ordinary birth-rates, lower than in the United 

 Kingdom and in Continental countries, and Australasia certainly has 

 had heavy declines in the rate of excess of births over deaths, viz., from 

 25.17 in 1861-65 to 15 in 1896-99, which is to be compared with the 

 decline in the United States, as above stated approximately, from 28 in 

 1820-30, and 21 as late as 1860, to 13 in the last twenty years. 



A similar table for England only gives the following results : 



Birth-rate and Death-rate and Rate of Excess of Births over Deaths in England 



for undermentioned^ Years. 



1851. 

 1861. 

 1871. 

 1881. 

 1891. 

 1899. 



Birth-rate per 

 1,000. 



34.2 

 34.6 

 35.0 

 33.9 

 31.4 

 29.3 



Death-rate per 

 1,000. 



22.0 

 21.6 

 22.6 

 18.9 

 20.2 

 18.3 



Excess of Birth-rate 

 Over Death-rate. 



12.2 

 13.0 

 12.4 

 15.0 

 11.2 

 11.0 



iVo^e.— Highest birth-rate in 1876, 36.3. 



