504 The National Geographic Magazine 



The Kirghiz in the Alai Valley 



in the building up of the plains, and we 

 have made some progress in correlating 

 these events. 



We have also found full confirmation 

 of the statements as to a progressive 

 desiccation of the region of long stand- 

 ing which has from a remote period con- 

 tinually converted cultivable lands into 

 deserts and buried cities in sand. 



We have found widely distributed 



great and small abandoned sites of 

 human occupation with evidences of 

 great antiquity. 



We have reason to think that a cor- 

 relation of these physical and human 

 events may be obtained through con- 

 tinuance of the investigation, and that 

 archeological excavations will throw 

 light on the origin of Western and East- 

 ern civilizations. 



PROPORTION OF CHILDREN IN THE 

 UNITED STATES 



MANY interesting suggestions as 

 to the probable tendency of the 

 birth rate in the United States 

 are offered in a bulletin by Walter F. 

 Willcox entitled ' 'Proportion of Children 

 in the United States," recently pub- 

 lished by the Bureau of the Census. 



At the beginning of the nineteenth 

 century the children under 10 years of 

 age constituted one-third and at the end 

 less than one-fourth of the total popu- 

 lation. The decrease in this proportion 

 began as early as the decade 18 10 to 

 1820, and continued uninterruptedly, 



