SECT. II.] DECREASE OF POPULATION. 157 



the chief causes of the depopulation of America is absent in 

 Polynesia, and has not caused very extensive devastations in 

 Australia, namely, the oppression of the whites and the inter- 

 course with them. There is, however, one circumstance which 

 did not so much prevail in America, but seems very effective 

 in Australia, namely, the great mortality among children. 



The extinction of a people once healthy and vigorous cannot 

 be explained by a denial of viability, or an original defective 

 organization, or by the assumption of some mysterious cause ; 

 we must investigate and search for natural agencies, though 

 we may be obliged to confess that our endeavours to trace 

 them have hitherto not been perfectly successful. 



The decrease of the population in Polynesia, concerning 

 which Meinicke 1 has furnished valuable statistical accounts, does 

 not proceed in equal proportions in all the islands. The merry 

 inhabitants of the Tonga and Friendly islands produce many 

 children, and their number is increasing; 2 and in Tikopia every 

 family has three to eight children. 3 On the other hand, the 



' population decreases in the islands of the Samoa Archipelago, 

 on the Glambier islands, in New Zealand, where Crozet 4 found 

 in 1771, in the island bay, twenty villages, each having about 

 four hundred inhabitants. Though these may have withdrawn 

 into the interior, 5 it remains still a vain attempt of Shortland 6 



' to show that the decrease is merely apparent and not real. If 

 it be true that in the village Te Aro, containing seventy men 

 and forty -two women, there are but twenty-four children, 7 and 

 if similar proportions, as we understand, occur in other places, 

 Fox 8 is perfectly justified in assuming a yearly decrease of at 

 least 4 per cent. Power 9 is of opinion that if the decrease 

 continues pari passu, the country will be depopulated about 



1 "D. Siidseevolker und d. Christenth." p. Ill, 1844. 



2 Pickering, p. 83 ; Quarterly Beview, Dec. 1853 ; Erskine, " Journal of a 

 cruise among the islands of the W. Pacific," p. 161, 1853. 



3 Gaiinard, in d'Urville, " Voy. de 1' Astrolabe," v, p. 309, 1830, 



4 " N. Eeise durch d. Sxidsee," p. 27, 1783. 



6 Dieffenbach, " Trav. in New Zealand," ii, p. 14, 1843. 



6 " The Southern districts of New Zeal.," p. 40, 1851. 



7 " On the British colonization of New Zeal, by the Committee of the Abo- 

 rig. Protect. Soc.," p. 52, 1846. 



8 "The six colonies of New Zealand," p. 53, 1851. 



9 " Sketches in N. Z.," p. 119, 184-9. 



