FECUNDITY IN DIFFERENT CLIMATES. 775 



ment of Slaves, that the Creole women of the West 

 Indies are more fruitful than the natives of Africa, 

 among whom abortions are frequent. It is there- 

 fore not surprising, that the population of tropical 

 Africa has always been sparse. The women are 

 also unfruitful in the north of Asia, Europe, and 

 America, where seldom more than three births 

 are produced from one marriage ; and where the 

 mean duration of life is short. For example, it 

 has been computed that in Iceland, (the climate 

 of which is moderate compared with that of Asia 

 or America in the same latitudes,) the annual 

 mortality was one in thirty, from 1825 to 1831. 

 (Bibliotheque Universelle, Oct. 1833, p. 177.) 



That moderately warm climates are more fa- 

 vourable to fecundity than such as are cold, has 

 been established by the researches of Quetelet, 

 who has shown that from the 40th to the 50th de- 

 gree of latitude in Europe, 100 marriages give 475 

 births ; while from lat. 50 to 67, the number is 

 430; and that in Portugal, it is 510, but only 

 362 in Sweden, and greater in the south than 

 in the north of France, in the ratio of 503 to 464. 

 Perhaps there is no part of the world where the 

 population increases so rapidly as in Ireland,* 

 especially when we consider the multitudes that 



* Such is the delightful uniformity of temperature in the Green 

 Isle, that at Cork, the mean of winter is about 43, and that of 

 summer 61. When this beautiful country shall have thrown off 

 the shackles of superstition, and obtained its political rights, it 



3 E 



