40 OBSERVATIONS on THE 
the fame number of non-natives, who died here after eigh- 
ty, in the courfe of that year. In this cafe, the number 
of thofe who die at Philadelphia, after completing the 
Soth year of their age, compared with the total number of 
deaths in the year 1789, will and in the proportion of 
24‘. of the former, to 1000 of the latter. It muft be ob- 
vious, to any perfon confidering this fubje&, that every 
calculation of the probabilities of the duration of life, at the 
later periods of life, and of the proportions, which the 
numbers of thofe dying at very advanced periods of its exif- 
tence, bear to the numbers of fuch as die, at its early and 
middle ages,--muft neceflarily give a more unfatisfactory 
refult, than fimilar eftimates for the anterior periods of 
life —This is the cafe, in fome degree, when applied to 
any country; under whatever circumftances the applicati- 
on may be made: the obfervation is true,in a greater de- 
gree, when applied to towns, whether great or fmall:— 
and itis ftill more juft, with refpe& to American towns; 
by reafon of the infant ftate of our country,—the continu- 
al flu@uation in the migrations of the inhabitants,—and 
the rapid increafe of population, as well in our capitals as 
in the country generally.—The reafon of my not having 
gone higher than the age of ror years complete, is, that 
M. Buffon, in his general table of the probabilities, &c. 
makes no calculation for any age beyond that period of 
life: out of 23,994 deaths, he eftimates only two to be liv- 
ing after the completion of the ro1ft year, and none at 102. 
A further datum for afcertaining the fuperiority of this 
country, inthe progrefs of its population, is founded on 
the proportion which the annual deaths bear to the whole 
number of the living, in different countries.—In Dr. Price’s 
efflay on the expectation of lives, ftate of London, popu- 
Jation, &c. it is laiddown, as the refult of various cal. 
culations, that in Londonand Edinburgh, there die an- 
nually about one in twenty-one; in Dublin, one in twen- 
ty 
