Penfyfoania> Germantowrt. $1 



tut likewife grow fooner old, than the people in 

 Europe. It is nothing uncommon to fee little 

 children, giving fprightly and ready anfwers to 

 queftions that are propofed to them, fo that they 

 feem to have as much underftanding as old men* 

 But they do not attain to fuch an age as the Eu- 

 ropeans; and it is almoft an unheard-of thing, that 

 a perlbn, born in this country, {hould live to be 

 eighty or ninety years of age* But I only fpeak 

 of the Europeans that fettled here- For the fa- 

 vages, or firft inhabitants, frequently attained a 

 great age, though at prefent fuch examples are 

 uncommon, which is chiefly attributed to the 

 great ufe of brandy, which the favages have learnt 

 of the Europeans. Thofe who are born in E#- 

 rope attain a greater age here, than thofe who are 

 born here of European parents. In the laft war 

 it plainly appeared that thefe new Americans 

 were by far lefs hardy than the Europeans, in ex- 

 peditions, fieges, and long fea-voyages, and died 

 in numbers. It is very difficult for them to ufc 

 themfelves to a climate different from their own. 

 The women ceafe bearing children fooner than 

 in Europe. They feldom or never have children 

 after they are forty or forty-five years old, and 

 fome leave off in the thirtieth year of their age. 

 I enquired into the caufes of this, but no one 

 could give me a good one. Some faid it was ow- 

 ing to the affluence in which the people live here. 

 Some afcribed it to the inconftancy and change- 

 ablenefs of trie weather, and believed that there 

 hardly was a country on earth in which the wea- 

 ther changes fo often in a day as it does here. For 

 if it were ever fo hot, one could not be certain 

 VOL, I. G whether 



