POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



!37 



POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



Famines in Ancient and Modern Times. 



In a statistical paper recently published, 

 Mr. Cornelius Walford gives a chronologi- 

 cal table of the famines of which historic 

 racord exists, and then in twelve other 

 tables notes the operation of the various 

 causes, natural and artificial, which tend to 

 produce famines, among the natural causes 

 being floods and inundations, frost, drought, 

 sundry other meteorological phenomena, in- 

 sects, and vermin. The artificial causes are 

 considered under the heads of war, defec- 

 tive agriculture, defective transport, legis- 

 lative interference, currency restrictions, 

 speculation, and, finally, misapplication of 

 grain. What strikes the reader who 

 glances at the first table is the great fre- 

 quency of famines in earlier times, as com- 

 pared with the present. Take, for instance, 

 the record of two or three hundred years, 

 beginning with the year 600, and compare 

 it with that of the hundred years beginning 

 with the year 1775. And, in making this 

 comparison, it must be remembered that 

 such events are sure to find permanent rec- 

 ord to-day, while in earlier times the record 

 was local, and has in many instances since 

 been effaced. Mr. Walford's first table re- 

 cords, under the date 600 to 604, famine in 

 France ; 605, in England ; 625, in Britain 

 (grievous); 664, Ireland great famine; 

 667, Scotland (grievous) ; 669, France 

 great famine ; 669, Ireland great scarcity, 

 also in the following year ; 680, Britain, from 

 three years' drought ; 695, England, and 700, 

 Ireland famine and pestilence for three 

 years, " so that men ate each other" ; 703, 

 Italy three years' famine; 712, Wales; 

 730, England, Wales, and Scotland great 

 famine ; 748, Scotland ; 759, Ireland 

 great famine ; 768, same country famine, 

 and again 772 ; 774, Scotland famine, 

 "with plague"; 791, Wales grievous 

 famine ; 793, England famine ; 803, Scot- 

 land " terrible " famine; 822-'23, Eng- 

 land "thousands starve"; 824-'25, Ire- 

 landgreat dearth ; 836, Wales " the 

 ground covered with dead bodies of men 

 and beasts" ; 845, Bulgaria great famine; 

 851, Italy and Germany famine ; 856, 

 Scotland a four years' famine began ; 

 836, same country famine, with plague ; 



872, England famine " from ugly locust." 

 In this century Paris was visited by famine 

 three times. Now, turn to the record of 

 the last hundred years. In 1775, at Cape 

 de Verde great famine 16,000 persons 

 perish ; 1789, France grievous famine, 

 province of Rouen ; 1795, England scarci- 

 ty of food severely felt ; 1801, United King- 

 domgreat scarcity; flour obtained from 

 America ; 1812, England and Ireland great 

 scarcity ; 1813, Poland famine consequent 

 on an inundation; same year 5,000 souls 

 perished in Sweden ; 1822, Ireland dread- 

 ful famine, produced by failure of potato 

 crop; 1832, same country famine Par- 

 liament grants 40,000 for relief, and 74,- 

 410 subscribed in England; 1845, same 

 country Parliament advanced 10,000,- 

 000 275,000 persons supposed to have 

 perished ; famine lasted nearly six years ; 

 1,029,552 persons died in this period from 

 starvation and pestilence consequent on 

 it ; population reduced by these causes 

 and emigration by about 2,500,000; 1847, 

 France scarcity; 1877, Brazil upward of 

 200,000 of the population exposed to fam- 

 ine. We have purposely omitted notices of 

 the famines in countries outside of Europe, 

 or not settled mainly by Europeans. In 

 such regions famine is at least as frequent 

 and dread a visitant as ever it was. The 

 contrast made by the foregoing figures is 

 highly creditable to modern civilization. 



The Age of the World. The age of the 



world, as estimated by T. Mellard Reade, in 

 a paper contributed to the London Royal 

 Society, is enormously in excess of the lim- 

 its assigned by certain physicists, and al- 

 lows ample time for the production of all 

 the changes of the organic and inorganic 

 world postulated by the theory of evolu- 

 tion. Limestones, he remarks, have been 

 in course of formation from the earliest 

 known geological periods, but it would ap- 

 pear that the later-formed strata are more 

 calcareous than the earlier, and that there 

 has in fact been a gradually progressive in- 

 crease of calcareous matter. The very ex- 

 tensive deposition of carbonate of lime over 

 wide areas of the ocean-bottom at the pres- 

 ent day is attested by the soundings of the 

 Challenger. According to Mr. Reade, the 

 sedimentary crust of the earth is at least one 



