382 Observations on the 
The registration of the annual deaths marks an epoch in 
the history of “ life contingencies” in the United States. 
To trace the effect of the wide range of physical conditions 
and natural productions upon the human constitution and 
faculties presents to every reflecting mind an interesting 
field of research; and scarcely less so to investigate the 
influence of mental occupations and industrial pursuits, and 
of the wide diversity of climate,—from the highlands of 
Maine to the glades of Florida,—where the persistence and 
duration of life is an object of paramount importance, not 
only in a scientific, but in a commercial and national point 
of view. 
Among the more immediate advantages to be derived from 
data of this kind, through the medium of life-tables, are the 
following :—they would form a basis for the equitable distri- 
bution of life-interests in estates, pensions, and legacies ; they 
would assign the true valuation of life annuities, assurances, 
and reversions of heritable property, and tend to protect the 
public from many ill-adjusted financial schemes, founded in 
ignorance of the true probabilities of life; they would cor- 
rect a multitude of prejudices and misconceptions respecting 
the healthiness of different localities ; and, besides this, form 
a common standard of reference in all those moral, sanitary, 
and mercantile statistics which have brought to light most 
valuable truths and generalizations, and which give promise 
of still greater benefits in the advancement of civilization. 
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such data; where, too, instead of the sparse character peculiar to pastoral 
pursuits, the wilderness is dotted with families of men, women, and chil- 
dren, and with groups of families,—amongst whom, as is well known, 
the mortality is greater than amongst persons in the prime of life, such 
as are the stock- keepers and shepherds in the back runs of Australia. 
