179 



from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific is estimated by very 

 recent authors at 125,400, at 137,300, at 157,500, at 

 173,400, at 205,500, and at 238,400 square marine leagues, 

 20 to a degree : and it appeared to me impossible from those 

 varying statements, of which the difference amounts to more 

 than 100,000 square leagues, that is to six times the super- 

 fees of France, to find a result with which we might com- 

 pare the surfaces of the new free states of Spanish America. 

 In some instances the same author has, at different periods, 

 given very different estimates of the same territory, bounded 

 by the two seas between Cape Hatteras and the Rio Colum- 

 bia, between the mouth of the Mississipi and the lake des 

 Bois. Mr. Mellish, in his map of 1816, has estimated the 

 United States at 2,459,350 square miles (69*2 to u degree), 

 of which the territory of the Missouri alone is made 

 1,580,000. In his Travels through the United States of Ame- 

 rica, 1818, p. 501, he fixes the contents at 1,883,806 square 

 miles, of which the territory of the Missouri is estimated 

 at 985,250. Still later, in his Geographical description of the 

 United States, 1822, p. 17, he again increases the calculation 

 to 2,076,410 square miles. These fluctuations of opinion 

 respecting the extent of the surface of the United States 

 cannot be attributed to the various ways in which the limits 

 are traced : the errors for the most part which affect the 

 extent of the territory between the Mississipi and the Rocky 

 Mountains, and between those mountains and the coast of 

 the Pacific, arise from mere mistakes of calculation. I find 

 in taking the average of several estimates, on the maps of 

 Arrowsmith, Mellish, Tardieu, and Brue : — 



Square Marine 

 Leagues. • 



I. On the east of the Mississipi 77,684 



or 930,000 square miles. 



a.) Atlantic part, east of the Alleghanis 27,064 

 or 324,000 square miles. The chain 



n2 



i 



