87 



and altitude, preserving the general outlines. Thus it 

 may make a circle appear elliptical, raise or depress a 

 cone, but by none of its laws, as yet developed, will it 

 make a circle appear a square, or a cone a sphere. 



QUERY VIII. 



The number of its inhabitants ? 



The following table shows the number of persons 

 imported for the establishment of our colony in its in- 

 fant state, and the census of inhabitants at different pe- 

 riods, extracted from our historians and public re- 

 cords, as particularly as I have had opportunities and 

 leisure to examine them. Successive lines in the same 

 year show successive periods of time in that year. I 

 have stated the census in two different columns, the 

 whole inhabitants having been sometimes numbered, 

 and sometimes the tythes only. This term, with us, 

 includes the free males above 16 years of age, and 

 slaves above that age of both sexes. A further exami- 

 nation of our records would render this history of our 

 population much more satisfactory and perfect, by fur- 

 nishing a greater number of intermediate terms. These, 

 however, which are here stated will enable us to calcu- 

 late, with a considerable degree of precision, the rate 

 at which we have increased. During the infancy of 

 the colony, while numbers were small, wars, importa- 

 tions, and other accidental circumstances render the 

 progression fluctuating and irregular. By the year 

 1654, however, it becomes tolerably uniform, importa- 

 tions having in a great measure ceased from the disso- 

 lution of the company, and the inhabitants become too 

 numerous to be sensibly affected by Indian wars. Be- 

 ginning at that period, therefore, ^ve find that from 

 thence to the year 1772, our tithes had increased from 

 7209 to 153,000. The whole term being of 118 years, 

 yields a duplication once in every 27^ years. The in- 

 termediate enumerations taken in 1700, 1748, and 1759, 

 furnish proofs of the uniformity of this progression. 



