United States and Territories of North America. 51 
age exceed the corresponding increments of the class above six- 
teen. In North Carolina the two increments are precisely the 
same ; and in Connecticut they may be nearly regarded as 
such. Rhode Island presents the only instance of a decrement. 
The most remarkable disparity in the increments of the two 
classes is in the state of Ohio, where the difference amounts 
to 55.6 per cent ; a circumstance most probably to be account- 
ed for, from a considerable increase of the second class, by immi- 
gration. The greatest difference in any of the other states 
amounts only to 17 per cent. In the northern states, Vermont 
received the greatest increment, and Rhode Island the least. 
In the middle states, New York had the largest increase, and 
Delaware the smallest ; and in the southern states, Kentucky 
experienced the greatest increment, and Maryland the smallest. 
Kentucky indeed received a larger increment than any other 
state, and Rhode Island a smaller, not only in both classes of 
males, but also in the class of females. Connecticut and Mary- 
land present the greatest degree of uniformity in their incre- 
ments, and Ohio the least. It is most remarkable, however, 
that notwithstanding the male and female increments appear so 
very irregular, it seems impossible to trace the existence of 
any law, or uniformity of principle, yet that the sum of the fe- 
male increments should agree within ^th of the mean of the 
sum of the two classes of males : the sum of the female incre- 
ments amounts to 7348, and the mean of the sums of the males 
to 734.9) — a coincidence most striking and singular *. 
* Mr Stewart, in the second volume of his Philosophy of the Human Mind, 
page 231, when speaking of the uniformity of the course of nature, has the follow- 
ing remarks. “ How accidental soever these circumstances may appear, and how 
much soever they may be placed, when individually considered, beyond the reach 
of our calculations, experience shews, that they are somehow or other mutually 
adjusted, so as to produce a certain degree of uniformity in the result ; and this 
uniformity is the more complete, the greater is the number of circumstances com- 
bined. What can appear more uncertain than the proportion between the sexes 
among the children of the same family ! and yet how wonderfully is the balance 
preserved in the case of a numerous society ! What more precarious than the du- 
ration of life in an individual ! and yet, in a long list of persons of the same age, 
and placed in the same circumstances, the mean duration of life is found to vary 
within very narrow limits. In an extensive district, too, a considerable degree of 
regularity may sometimes be traced for a course of years, in the proportion of 
births and deaths to the number of the whole inhabitants. Thus, in France, 
