ENGLAND. 



665 



PART II. STATISTICS. 



CHAP. L 



General and Progressive Geography. 



Statistics. 



and WALES, that part of the British empire, 

 which forms the larger and southern part of the island 

 Boundaries. ^ Great Britain, is situated between 50 and 55 4-5' N. 

 Lat. and 1 50' East and 540' West Long. The sea 

 bounds it on three sides ; and on the north it is bound- 

 ed by Scotland : The sea which lies to the east of it is 

 called the German Ocean ; that which washes its south- 

 ern side is called the English Channel ; and on the west 

 it is bounded by St George's Channel. 



Figure. I to general figure is triangular : one point of the tri- 



angle stretches to the north-east ; another to the east, 

 with a little inclination to the north ; and the third 

 stretches to the south-west. The ba.se of the triangle 

 is formed by a line drawn from the South Foreland in 

 the county of Kent, to the Land's End in the county of 

 Cornwall ; the eastern side of the triangle may be con- 

 ceived as formed by a line drawn from Berwick in the 

 north-east, to the South Foreland ; the western side, by 

 a line drawn from Berwick to the Land's End. 

 Different' Geographers, and writers on political arithmetic, 

 opinions re- have differed considerably respecting the extent of the 

 pecting it area of England and Wales ; their statements varying 

 "* from 28,000,000 statute acres, to 46,916,000. The 



most ancient and traditional opinion states the area 

 Traditiona O f South Britain at 29,000,000 statute acres. On 

 Ioa> what data or calculations this statement is founded, or 

 at what period it was formed, is not known ; but it is 

 probably very ancient, and derived from tolerably 

 accurate data, as it very nearly agrees with the extent of 

 the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, and, in the opinion of some 

 authors, may indeed be traced back to that time. Al- 

 though at this period trigonometrical and geographical 

 knowledge was not sufficiently accurate, or so far advan- 

 ced as to have enabled our ancestors toform their calcula- 

 tions of the area of South Britain, on the principles and 

 according to the results given by those sciences, yet 

 from other sources they might be enabled to approach 

 the truth on this subject. The mode of levying the 

 revenue of the Anglo-Saxon kings, led to a more mi- 

 nute and accurate investigation of the extent and culti- 

 vation of their territory, than has since been underta- 

 ken or attempted : this is evident from the minuteness 

 and accuracy with which Domesday Book is compiled, 

 which continually refers to a more ancient register of 

 the same kind. 



Opinion of This traditional opinion respecting the area of South 

 Britain, seems to have been coincided in till the year 

 1636, when Gerard Malines published his Lex Merca- 

 toria, a work of wonderful acuteness and information 

 on the subject of political economy. In the sixth chap- 

 ter of this work, he professes to give a geometrical de- 

 scription of the world, especially of Europe, measured 

 by millions of acres of ground upon the map. Accord- 

 ing to him, England contains '29,568,000 acres, forming 

 the 1000th part of the whole globe, or the 22d part of 

 the earth inhabited, or the 3SOth part of the whole 

 earth : of this area he supposes there are 5,568,000 

 acres of wild and waste grounds, and high- ways. 



VOL. VIII. PAR II. 



Although an admeasurement of the maps of England Statistics. 

 and Wales, even inaccurately constructed as they were at -y ' 

 this period, might have been sufficient to prove that the 

 areas assigned by tradition and by Malines, were far 

 below the truth ; yet Sir William Petty, in his calcu- Sir William 

 lation of the extent of South Britain, reduces the Betty's. 

 number of acres, considering them as amounting 

 only to 28,000,000. But Sir William Petty in this, 

 as in too many other instances of political arithmetic, 

 was satisfied with vague and loose conjecture, where 

 he might at least have gained a near approach to truth 

 and accuracy. It may, indeed, have happened, that 

 Sir William Petty calculated by 60 miles to a degrte 

 of latitude ; in which case, the number of acres that 

 he assigns to South Britain will agree very nearly with 

 Morden's map, which was the best that had been pub- 

 lished when he wrote. 



Gregory King, Lancaster herald, who published Gregory 

 " Natural and political observations and conclusions King's. 

 upon the state and condition of England, 1 696," which 

 work is praised and garbled by Davenant, and has 

 been lately republished entire by Mr George Chalmers, 

 calculates that England and Wales contain 39,000,000 

 acres; of which 12,000,000 consisted of heaths, moors, 

 mountains, barren lands, rivers, lakes, meres, and 

 ponds ; roads, ways, and waste lands ; or were oc- 

 cupied by houses, homesteads, gardens, orchards, 

 churches, and churchyards. The same author calcu. 

 lates, that England and Wales are in proportion to the 

 globe of the earth and seas, as one to 3,300 : to the 

 known habitable world, as one to 600 ; to Europe 

 (including Muscovy) as one to 13 ; to France, as one 

 to three and a quarter ; to Holland, as nine to two ; 

 and to France and Holland, as one to three and a half. 



It is evident, that in all these calculations of Malines, rjt Hal- 

 Sir William Petty, and Gregory King, political arithme- ley's, 

 tic had derived no assistance from the more sure and 

 accurate sciences, but had been suffered tc range unen- 

 lightened and .uncontroulled, either by geography or 

 geometry. At length, Dr Edmund Halley, in conse- 

 quence of the earnest desire of his industrious and in- 

 quisitive friend Mr Houghton, author of the Collec- 

 tions for the improvement of Husbandry and Trade, 

 made a most elaborate calculation with respect to the 

 contents of England and Wale's, which he found to con- 

 tain in the gross that is, taking the whole from a sin- 

 gle map, 38,660,000 acres ; and on a strict computa-* 

 tion of the several counties, each separately examined, 

 he computed the total to be 39,938,500 acres ; and as 

 these sums, attained to by these two different me- 

 thods, so nearly approached each other, he concluded 

 that neither of them could be very wide from the 

 truth. He adds, that, in his judgment, England and 

 Wales might be esteemed the 3000th part of the whole 

 globe of the earth, and the 1500th part of the inha- 

 bited world. Dr Halley's own account of his calcu- 

 lations is given in vol. i. p. 69, of Houghton's Col' 

 lections. Besides the source of error to which the cal- source of 

 Dilations of Dr Halley were exposed, from the inaccu- error on this 

 racy of the maps of England, which existed in his time, subject, 

 (a circumstance which will be afterwards more particu- 

 larly noticed, ) his estimate was rendered erroneous, by 

 his having used (as most of our geographers still do) 

 4 p 



