62 Of the Checks to Population Bk. i. 



the pine-tree and cockles.* In one of the boat 

 excursions, a party of Indians was met with who 

 had some halibut, but, though very high prices 

 were offered, they could not be induced to part 

 with any. This, as Captain Vancouver observes, 

 was singular, and indicated a very scanty supply. f 

 At Nootka Sound, in the year 1794, fish had be- 

 come very scarce and bore an exorbitant price ; 

 as, either from the badness of the season or from 

 neglect, the inhabitants had experienced the 

 greatest distress for want of provisions during 

 winter.^ 



P6rouse describes the Indians in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Port Francois as living during the 

 summer in the greatest abundance by fishing, but 

 exposed in the winter to perish from want.§ 



It is not therefore, as Lord Kaimes imagines, 

 that the American tribes have never increased 

 sufficiently to render the pastoral or agricultural 

 state necessary to them ;(| but, from some cause 

 or other, they have not adopted in any great de- 

 gree these more plentiful modes of procuring 

 subsistence, and therefore have not increased so 

 as to become populous. If hunger alone could 

 have prompted the savage tribes of America to 



* Vancouver's Voyage, vol. ii. b. ii. c. ii. p. 273. 

 f Id. ib. p. 282. 

 % Id. vol. iii. b. vi. c. i. p. 304. 

 § Voyage de Perouse, ch. ix. p. 400. 



II Sketches of the History of Man, vol. i, p. 99, 105, 8vo. 2d 

 edit. 



