TEllBITOBY AND POPULATION. 133 



of the Mississippi, as well as in the interior of Spanish 

 (iuiana, there are not two inhabitants to the square league 

 over much larger extents of territory than Switzerland or 

 Belgium. The state of these countries is like that of the 

 Russian Empire, where the relative population of some of 

 the Asiatic governments (Irkutsk and Tobolsk), is to that 

 of the best cultivated European districts, as 1 to 300. 



The enormous difference existing, in countries newly 

 cultivated, between the extent of territory and the number 

 of inhabitants, renders these partial estimates necessary. 

 When we learn that New Spain and the United States, taking 

 their entire extent at 75,000 and 174,000 square sea-leagues, 

 give respectively, 90 and 58 souls to each league, we no more 

 obtain a correct idea of that distribution of the population 

 on which the political power of nations depends, than we 

 should of the climate of a country, that is to say, of the distri- 

 bution of the heat in the different seasons, by the mere know- 

 ledge of the mean temperature of the whole year. II 

 we take from the United States all their possessions 

 west of the Mississippi, their relative population would 

 be 121 instead ot 58 to the square league ; consequently 

 much greater than that of New Spain. Taking from the 

 latter country the Provincias internas (north and north-east 

 of Nueva Galicia), we should find 190, instead of 90 souls 

 to the square league. 



The provinces of Caracas, Maracaybo, Cumana, and Bar- 

 celona, that is, the maritime provinces of the north, are the 

 most populous of the old Capitania- General of Caracas; 

 but, in comparing this relative population with that of 

 NVw Spain, where the two intendencias of Mexico and 

 Pucbla alone contain, on an extent scarcely equal to the 

 superficies of the province of Caracas, a greater population 

 l h;m that of the whole republic of Columbia, we see that 

 some Mexican intendencias, which, with respect to the con- 

 centration of their culture, occupy but the seventh or eighth 

 rank (Zacatecas and Guadalajara), contain more inhabitants 

 to the square league than the province of Caracas. The 

 age of the relative population of Cumana, Barcelona, 

 Caracas, and Maracaybo, is fifty-six ; and, as 6200 square 

 leagues,'that is, one half of the extent of these four provinces 

 are almost desert Llanos, we find, in reckoning the superficiuft 



