SHOWN BY INCREASE OF NUMBERS. 483 



900,000,000 of acres ; about 6,500 acres, or 10 square miles, 

 to each individual. Again, the inhabitants of Patagonia, 

 south of 40, and exclusive of Chiloe and Tierra del Fuego, 

 are estimated by Admiral Fitzroy at less than 4,000, and the 

 number of acres is 176,640,000, giving more than 44,000 

 acres, or 68 square miles for each person. A writer in the 

 " Voice of Pity," however, thinks that their numbers may, 

 perhaps, amount to 14,000 or 15,000.* It would be difficult 

 to form any census of the aborigines in Australia ; Mr. Old- 

 field estimates that there is one native to every 50 square 

 miles ; f and it is, at least, evident that, since the introduc- 

 tion of civilisation, the total population of that continent has 

 greatly increased. 



Indeed, population invariably increases with civilisation. 

 Paraguay, with 100,000 square miles, has from 300,000 to 

 500,000 inhabitants, or about four to a square mile. The 

 uncivilised parts of Mexico contained 374,000 inhabitants in 

 675,000 square miles; while Mexico proper, with 833,600 

 square miles, had 6,691,000 inhabitants. Naples had more 

 than 183 inhabitants to each square mile ; Venetia more 

 than 200, Lombardy 280, England 280, Belgium as many 

 as 320. 



Finally, we cannot but observe that, under civilisation, 

 the means of subsistence have increased, even more rapidly 

 than the population. Far from suffering for want of food, 

 the more densely peopled countries are exactly those in 

 which it is, not only absolutely, but even relatively most 

 abundant. It is said that any one who makes two blades of 

 grass grow where one grew before, is a benefactor to the 

 human race ; what, then, shall we say of that which enables 

 a thousand men to live in plenty, where one savage could 

 scarcely find a scanty and precarious subsistence ? 



* I.e. vol. ii., p. 93. f Trans. Ethn. Soc., New Ser., vol. iii., p. 220. 



