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CHAP. IV. 



Of the Checks to Population among ike American Indians. 



We may next turn our view to the vast continent 

 of America, the greatest part of which was found 

 to be inhabited by small independent tribes of 

 savages, subsisting, nearly like the natives of New 

 Holland, on the productions of unassisted nature. 

 The soil was covered by an almost universal 

 forest, and presented few of those fruits and escu- 

 lent vegetables which grow in such profusion in 

 the islands of the South Sea. The produce of a 

 most rude and imperfect agriculture, known to 

 some of the tribe of hunters, was so trifling as to 

 be considered only as a feeble aid to the subsist- 

 ence acquired by the chase. The inhabitants of 

 this new world therefore might be considered as 

 living principally by hunting and fishing ;* and 

 the narrow limits to this mode of subsistence are 

 obvious. The supplies derived from fishing could 

 reach only those who were within a certain dis- 

 tance of the lakes, the rivers, or the sea-shore ; 

 and the ignorance and indolence of the improvi- 



* Robertson's History of America, vol. ii. b. iv. p. 127. et seq. 

 octavo edit. 1 780. 



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