1*26 



in our days, in the proportion of 4, 2 J, 1 ; 

 while the extent of surface, on which the popu- 

 lation is spread, is, as the numbers 1*5, 0*7, I. 

 The area of the United States is nearly a fourth 

 greater than that of Russia on the west of the 

 Uralian mountains ; and Spanish America is in 

 the same proportion more extensive than the 

 whole of Europe. The United States * contain 

 five eighths of the population of the Spanish pos- 

 sessions, and yet their area is not one half so 

 large. Brazil comprehends tracts of country so 

 desert toward the west, that, in an extent only a 

 third less than that of Spanish America, it's 

 population is in the proportion of one to four. 

 The following table contains the results of an 

 attempt, which I made conjointly with Mr. Ma- 

 thieu, member of the Academy of Sciences and 



* To avoid tiresome circumlocutions, I shall continue to 

 designate in this work, notwithstanding the political changes 

 which have taken place in the state of the colonies, the country 

 inhabited by the Spanish Americans, by the denomination of 

 Spanish America. I call the country of the Angtoamericans 

 the United States, without adding of North America, although 

 other United States are formed in South America. It is 

 embarrassing to talk of nations, who act a great part on the 

 stage of the world, without having collective names. The 

 term American can no longer be applied solely to the citizens 

 of the United States of North America ; and it were to be 

 wished, that the nomenclature of the independant nations of 

 the New Continent should be fixed in a manner at once con- 

 venient, harmonious, and precise. 



