﻿3 1 8 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS [VOL. 47 



2.34 per cent. The average annual rate of increase during the whole 

 period was 1.83 percent. In Japan, where much more favorable 

 conditions exist than in China, the average yearly increase of the 

 population from 1872 to 1899 has been only 1.04 percent. 



If we accept the figure given for the population in 1741 (143,412,- 

 000) as being closer the truth than subsequent ones, and bearing in 

 mind the reasons given previously for and against a rapid increase of 

 population, we may assume that the population of China proper barely 

 doubled in the hundred years following; consequently in 1842, in- 

 stead of being, as given in the official enumeration, 413,000,000, it 

 was probably about 250,000,000. 



Referring now to the extraordinary causes of mortality from 

 1842 down to the present day, some of which are mentioned on pre- 

 ceding pages, they may be tabulated as follows : 



Resulting loss of 

 population. 



1846 Famine 225,000 



1849 Famine 13,750,000 



1854-64 T'ai-p'ing rebellion 20,000,000 



1861-78 Mohammedan rebellions 1,000,000 



1877-78 Famine 9,500,000 



1888 Yellow River inundation 2,000,000 



i892-'94 Famine 1,000,000 ( ?) 



i894-'95 Mohammedan rebellion 225,000 



Total loss of adults 47,700,000 



We are therefore led to the inevitable conclusion that the present 

 population of China proper cannot greatly exceed that of 1842, a 

 conclusion reached by another line of argument in 1881 by my friend 

 A. E. Hippisley in his too brief study above referred to, and by Mr. 

 Popoff in 1884. 



The following considerations tend to strengthen this opinion : 

 The most recent enumeration of the population of China which can 

 lay claim to any value, is that of 1885. In it we find that the returns 

 given for six provinces (Chih-li, An-hui, Kan-su, Kuang-hsi, Yun- 

 nan, and Kuei-chou) are the same as those given in the earlier census 

 of 1882, but which in this latter were in reality for the year 1879. 

 A comparison of the official estimates for these provinces with the 

 estimates made by careful foreign investigators is highly interesting. 



In the case of the province of Ssu-ch'uan, which the Board of 

 Revenue estimated at 71,073,730 in 1885, all foreign writers agree 

 that it is quite impossible to believe that any such population exists — 

 or can exist in it. Its western, northwestern, and southwestern parts 

 are extremely mountainous and very sparsely inhabited ; furthermore, 



