HISTORY OF VERMONT. 42:^ 



pient towns, along the sea coast, in Massachu* 

 setts. The increase of the people therefore 

 <^erivcd from the births, is annually diminished 

 one half by the natural operation of death : And 

 instead of doubling in sixteen years as must 

 ]|iave been the case had no one died, the efftct 

 occasioned by death, will be, to prolong this 

 period one half ; instead of sixteen years the 

 period of doubling will become twenty four. 

 This will be the period of doubling in all those 

 places, where the mean age of human lile is 

 sixteen years, and the ratio of death to birth as 

 one to two. 



From this method of reasoning, I much sus- 

 pect that the age at which the numbers of peo- 

 ple are equally divided, will in every country 

 prove to be the time, which nature requires in 

 that climate, to produce double the number of 

 people tliat are then living • That the actual 

 period of doubling, will in fact be retarded in 

 ^xact proportion to that, which the deaths bear 

 to the births : And that this ratio will very 

 nearly determine what influence the state of so- 

 ciety has, on the increase of mankind in any 

 country or town. 



I am not in possession of the data that would 

 be necessary to examine this theory, by the 

 state of things in the ancient and populous 

 countries, of the other hemisphere. But from 

 the enumeration that was made of the inhabit- 

 ants of the United States of America, in 1790, 

 we may venture to compute the state of things 

 among ourselves. The number of males, their 

 relative proportions, numbers below and above 

 sixteen, and the age below and above which the 

 numbers become equal, are as follows : 



