Ch. i. in Norway. 269 



agricultural villages of other countries, where the 

 preventive check to population does not prevail 

 in the same degree, the mortality is as small as in 

 Norway. But it should be recollected, that the 

 calculation iu this case is for those particular vil- 

 lages alone; whereas in Norway the calculation of 

 one in forty-eight is for the whole country. The 

 redundant population of these villages is disposed 

 of by constant emigrations to the towns, and the 

 deaths of a great part of those that are born in the 

 parish do not appear in the registers. But in 

 Norway all the deaths are within the calculation, 

 and it is clear, that, if more were born than the 

 country could support, a great mortality must take 

 place in some form or other. If the people were 

 not destroyed by disease, they would be destroyed 

 by famine. It is indeed well known, that bad and 

 insufficient food will produce disease and death in 

 the purest air and the finest climate. Supposing 

 therefore no great foreign emigration, and no ex- 

 traordinary increase in the resources of the coun- 

 try, nothing but the more extensive prevalence of 

 the preventive check to population in Norway can 

 secure to her a smaller mortality than in other 

 countries, however pure her air may be, or how- 

 ever healthy the employments of her people. 



Norway seems to have been anciently divided 

 into large estates or farms, called Gores ; and as, 

 according to the law of succession, all the brothers 

 divide the property equally, it is a matter of sur- 

 prise, and a proof how slowly the population has 

 hitherto increased, that these estates have not 



