498 
1,000. The excess of the birth rate over the 
death rate for 1916, 10.1 per 1,000, was thus 
a little less than the corresponding excess for 
1915, which was 10.9 per 1,000. If the birth 
and death rates prevailing in the later year 
were to remain unchanged, and if no migra- 
tion were to take place to or from the area to 
which they relate, its population would in- 
crease annually by about 1 per cent. This 
rate, compounded for a decade, would yield 
a decennial increase of a little more than 10 
per cent., or about half the rate of increase in 
the population of the country as a whole be- 
tween the last two censuses, 21 per cent. 
Of the total number of births reported, 799,- 
817, or 24.9 per 1,000, were of white infants, 
and 19,166, or 22.8 per 1,000, were of colored 
infants. The death rates for the two elements 
of the population were 14.5 and 24.4 per 1,000, 
respectively. The deaths reported for the col- 
ored races (comprising all nonwhites) thus ex- 
ceeded the births reported; but it is probable 
that the registration of births is less nearly 
complete among the colored than among the 
white population, and that therefore the rate 
shown for the former class is too low, whereas 
in the case of death rates there is probably not 
so great a margin of error. 
Some indication of the fecundity of the na- 
tive and foreign elements of the population 
may be obtained from a comparison between 
the proportion which the number of white for- 
eign-born mothers formed of the total number 
of white mothers to whom children were born 
in 1916, and the proportion which the white 
foreign-born married women, aged 15 to 44, 
formed of the total number of white married 
women of corresponding ages in 1910. 
From the table following, it appears that 
many more births occur to white foreign-born 
women, proportionately to their number, than 
to native women. In Connecticut, approxi- 
mately 46 per cent. of white married women 
aged 15 to 44 in 1910 were of foreign birth, 
but about 62 per cent. of the white mothers to 
whom children were born in 1916 were natives 
of foreign countries. 
The infant-mortality rate—that is, the num- 
ber of deaths of infants under one year of age 
SCIENCE 
[N. S. Vou. XLVIII. No. 1246 
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Connecticut ......... 61.63 46.36 
Malin oUy.)-..ete otters eter 27.23 21.89 
Maryland ........... 14.82 13.11 
Massachusetts ....... 56.32 48.87 
Michigan ........... 32.80 26.45 
Minnesota .......... 26.80 33.99 
New Hampshire ..... 41.69 32.69 
New York .......... 52.84 42.71 
Pennsylvania ....... 37.65 27.77 
Rhode Island ....... 57.37 49.94 
Vermont! tare ceteclete = 24.04 18.11 
per 1,000 born alive—throughout the registra- 
tion area as a whole was 101 in 1916, as against 
100 in 1915. This is equivalent to saying that 
of every ten infants born alive one died before 
reaching the age of one year. Among the 11 
states these rates ranged from 70 for Minne- 
sota to 121 for Maryland; and for the white 
population separately the lowest and highest 
rates were 69 for Minnesota and 115 for New 
Hampshire. The high rate for the total popu- 
lation of Maryland was due to the presence of 
a larger colored element in that state than in 
any of the others, the rate for the whites alone 
being only 101. 
The infant-mortality rates vary greatly for 
the two sexes and for the various nationalities. 
With an infant-mortality rate of 101 for the 
registration area as a whole, the rate ranges for 
white children from 68 where mothers were 
born in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, to 148 
where mothers were born in Poland, while ne- 
gro children have a rate of 184. The range of 
rates among white males is from 74 for chil- 
dren of mothers born in Denmark, Norway 
and Sweden, to 171 for those of mothers born 
in Poland, while negro males have a rate of 
202. The corresponding rates for females were 
62, 124 and 166, respectively. 
The following table shows, for the birth-reg- 
istration area, by states and by cities having 
more than 100,000 inhabitants in 1910, the 
number of births in 1916, the per cent. of ex- 
