132 COMPARISON* 



On comparing the extent of the territory with the ab- 

 solute population, we obtain the result of the connection 

 of those two elements of public prosperity, a connection 

 that constitutes the relative population of every state in 

 the New World. We shall find to every square sea league, 

 in Mexico, 90 ; in the TJnited States, 58 ; in the republic 

 of Columbia, 30; and in Brazil, 15 inhabitants; while 

 Asiatic [Russia furnishes 11; the whole Russian Empire, 

 87; Sweden with Norway, 90; European Eussia, 320; 

 Spain, 763; and France, 1778. But these estimates of 

 relative population, when applied to countries of immense 

 extent, and of which a great part is entirely uninhabited, 

 merely furnish mathematical abstractions of but little value. 

 In countries uniformly cultivated in France, for example 

 the number of inhabitants to the square league, calculated 

 by separate departments, is in general only a third, more 

 or less, than the relative population of the sum of all 

 the departments. Even in Spain, the deviations from the 

 average number rise, with few exceptions, only from half 

 to double. In America, on the contrary, it is only in the 

 Atlantic states, from South Carolina to New Hampshire, 

 that the population begins to spread with any uniformity. 

 In that most civilized portion of the New World, from 130 

 to 900 inhabitants are reckoned to the square league, while 

 the relative population on all the Atlantic states, considered 

 together, is 240. The extremes (North Carolina and Mas- 

 sachussets) are only in the relation of 1 to 7, nearly as in 

 France, where the extremes, in the departments of the 

 Hautes Alpes and the C6te-du-Nord are also in the relation 

 of 1 to 6' 7. The variations from the average number, which 

 we generally find restricted to narrow limits in the civilized 

 countries of Europe, exceed all measure in Brazil, in the 

 Spanish colonies, and even in the confederation of the 

 United States, in its whole extent. We find in Mexico, 

 in some of the intendencias, for example, La Sonora and 

 Durango, from 9 to 15 inhabitants to the square league, 

 while in others, on the central table-land, there are more 

 than 500. The relative population of the country situated 

 between the eastern bank of the Mississippi and the Atlantic 

 states, is scarcely 47 ; while that of Connecticut, Rhode 

 Island, viid Massachussets, is more than 800. Westward 



