RECEiNT ESTIMATE OF THE POPULATION OF THE WORLD. 



By Ed. Mailly. 



[Trauslated from the Freuch'* for the Smitlisonian Institution.] 



Note. — The author has made all his calculations in square kilometers. They have 

 Ijeen reduced by the translator to English square miles by the following formula: 

 1 square ki]ometer=.38614 square miles. 



Attempts have been made at different periods to estimate the pop- 

 ulation of the world. Confining ourselves to recent' times, in 1787 

 Biisching estimated the number to be 1,000,000,000, Until about fif- 

 teen years ago this number was still admitted as a base in arranging 

 the population according to the different races, religious creeds, &c. 

 In 1858, M. Dieterici stated the number to be 1,283,000,000; that is, 

 not far from l,300,000,000.t MM. Behm and Wagner, however, recently 

 estimated the number at 1,377,000,000.| 



The difficulties of arriving at a correct estimate will readily be under- 

 stood. The present regularly-organized systems of census do not in- 

 clude more than one-fourth of the human race, while the numbers of 

 the remaining three-fourths have to be estimated from the reports of 

 travelers ; and in using this only resource we are very frequently puzzled, 

 by obtaining contradictory results, from amid which nothing but care- 

 ful criticism can obtain an approximation to truth. 



The ideal of the statistician would be to have a census taken of the 

 population on the same day and on the same general plan in all the 

 inhabited parts of the world. 



Probably this can only be attained at a future time, when people 

 become naturally precise ; still it should no longer be deemed chimerical. 



A knowledge of the distribution of the population in the different 

 parts of the j^-lobe, or over the different countries which compose these 

 parts, has comparatively little value, unless accompanied by that of the 

 area of these countries, in which case we may calculate the relation 

 between the number of inhabitants and the surface of the territory over 

 which they are distributed. 



* L'Annuaire de I'Observatoire royal de Bruselles, for 1873, p. 128. 



tin the annual report of the observatory for the year 1859 was given an analysis of 

 the memoir on the population of the earth, contributed by M. Dieterici to the Academy 

 of Sciences of Berlin in March, 1858. 



t Mictheilungeu aus Justus Perthes' geographischer Anstalt, von Dr. A. Petermanu, 

 ^o. 33, 1872. 



