Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/761

Rh PROSPECTS.] AMERICA 7J7 ncuts. to the west, the south, and the north, as &quot; driven by the hand of God.&quot; Since he wrote the rate of progress has perhaps doubled, and every year will quicken its pace. If, then, we take a glance at the state of America at any future period, say 220 years hence (A.D. 2095), we must take the ratio of increase of the two civilised races as the prime clement of our calculation. We may assume that the whole continent, from Behring s Straits and Hudson s Bay to Cape Horn, will be divided between the two races in some such proportion as their rate of growth indicates it may be 10, 15, or 20 to 1. Supposing them to maintain a separate existence, the weaker race will probably be driven, like the Welsh before the English, into the mountainous and inhospitable regions. On the other hand, it is possible, and not improbable, that the smaller population may be absorbed into the mass of the greater, be incorporated with it, and adopt its language. The result, like other things in the womb of time, may be modified by causes yet unseen ; but in whatever shape it may present itself, there is little risk in predicting that the Anglo-Saxon race is destined by its superior intelligence and energy to rule the New World from end to end. American statesmen now speak of the whole continent as the heritage of their people. Useful soil Paradoxical as the fact may appear, we are satisfied that in New and the new continent, though less than half the size of the old, Old Conti- con t a m S at least an equal quantity of useful soil and much iinnfo more than an equal amount of productive power. America is indebted for this advantage to its comparatively small breadth, which brings nearly all its interior within reach of the fertilising exhalations of the ocean. In the old conti nent, owing to its great extent from east to west, the cen tral parts, deprived of moisture, are almost everywhere de serts ; and a belt round the western, southern, and eastern shores, comprises nearly all that contributes to the support of man. How much fruitful land, for instance, is there in continental Asia 1 ? If we draw a line from the Gulf of Cutch (near the Indus) to the head of the Yellow Sea, we cut off India and China, with the intervening Birman em pire and the southern valleys of Thibet ; and this space, which comprises only about one-fifth of the surface of Asia, embraces live-sixths of its productive power. Arabia, Persia, Central Thibet, Western India, Chinese and Inde pendent Tartary are deserts, with scattered patches of use ful soil not amounting to the twentieth part of their extent. Siberia, or Northern Asia, is little better, owing to aridity and cold together. Anatolia, Armenia, the Punjab, and a narrow strip along the western shores of the Pacific Ocean, north as far as the 60th parallel, compose the only valuable agricultural territory beyond India and China. Europe, which is merely the western margin of Asia, is all fruitful in the south ; but on the north its fruitf ulness terminates at the GOth or G2d parallel. Africa has simply a border of useful soil round three-fourths of its sea-coast, with some detached portions of tolerably good land in its interior. Of the 31,000,000 of square miles which these three continents occupy, we cannot find, after some calculation, that the pro ductive soil constitutes so much as one-third, and of that third a part is but poor. Now, in estimating the useful soil in America we reject 1. Most of the region north of the latitude of 53, amounting to 2,600,000 square miles ; 2. A belt of barren land about 300 miles broad by 1000 in length, or 300,000 square miles, lying on the east side of the Ptocky Mountains; 3. A belt of arid land of similar extent situated on the east side of the Andes, between 24 and 40 of south latitude; 4. The desert shore of Peru, equal to 100,000 square miles; 5. An extent of 100,000 square miles for the arid country of Lower Cali fornia and Sonora; and 6. An extent of 500,000 square miles for the summits of the Andes and the south extremity of Patagonia. These make an aggregate of 3,900,000 square miles; and this, deducted from 13,900,000, leaves 10,000,000 square miles as the quantity of useful soil in the New World. The productive powers of the soil depend on two circum- Ratio stances, heat and moisture; and these increase as we fertilii approach the equator. Now, it appears that the produc- latitiu tive or rather nutritive powers of the soil will be pretty correctly indicated by combining the ratios of the heat and the moisture, expressing the former of these in degrees of the centigrade scale. Something, we know, depends on the distribution of the heat through the different seasons; but aa we do not aim at minute accuracy, this rnay be overlooked. Latitude. CO 45

Indies of Rain. 16 29 96 Mean Heat. 7 14 28 Product. 112 406 2688 Ratio. 4 15 100 Thus, if the description of food were a matter of indiffer ence, the same extent of ground which supports four persons at the latitude of 60, would support 15 at the latitude of 45, and 100 at the equator. But the food preferred will not always be that which the land yields in greatest abund ance; and another most important qualifying circumstance must be considered it is labour which renders the ground fruitful, and the power of the human frame to sustain labour is greatly diminished in hot climates. We shall therefore consider the capacity of the land to support population as proportional to the third power of the cosine (or radius of gyration) of the latitude. It will therefore stand thus in round numbers : Latitude, 15 30 45 60 Productiveness, 100 90 65 35 12 1 In England the density of population is about 389 per- lucre; sons per square mile ; but England is in some measure the. f P] workshop of the world, and supports, by her foreign trade, 101U a greater population than her soil can nourish. In France the density of population is about 177 ; in Germany it varies from 100 to 200. On these grounds, we may assume that the number of persons which a square mile can properly sus tain without generating the pressure of a redundant popula tion is 150 at the latitude of 50, and 26 is the sum which expresses the productiveness of this parallel. Then taking, for the sake of simplicity, 35 as the index of the productive ness of the useful soil beyond 30 in America, and 85 as that of the country within the parallel of 30 on each side of the equator, we have about 4,000,000 square miles, each capable of supporting 200 persons, and 5,700,000 square miles, each capable of supporting 490 person. It follows that if tho natural resources of America were fully developed it would afford sustenance to 3,600,000,000 of inhabitants, a number nearly five times as great as the entire mass of human beings now existing upon the globe ! ALPHABETICAL CONTENTS. Aborigines, 686. English settlements, 708. Patagonians, 702. Alaska, 711. Esquimaux, 690. Pent, ancient, 696 ; Spnn- Amazon, 674. Ethnology, 685. ish, 709, 713. Anglo-Saxon race, &quot;1C. Fertility, 717. Physical regions, 670. Antiquities, G92. Fishes, 684. Plateaux, 677. Andes, 670. Forests, 676. Population, 716, 717. Araucanians, 701. Fossil animals, 682. Productiveness, 717. Area, 669. Geology, N.A., 679; S. A., Quadrumana, S. A., GS1. Argentine Republic, 713. 671. Itivcrs, 674. Aztecs, 695. Gold, 716. Rocky mountains, 674. Barrows, C92. Guaranis, 702. 677. Birds, 684. Guatemala, 710, 714. Ruminantia, S. A., 6S2. Bolivia, 713. Ilayti, 714. Russian America, 711. Botany, 684. Indians, 686, 690. Serpents, 684. Brazil empire, 710, 712; Isthmus, central, 715. Spanish settlements, 707. Indians, 702. Languages, 68S; Peruvian, Spanish-Indian race, 716. Canada, 711. 700. States, 7 10. Carnivorn, S. A., CS2. Mammalia, X.A., 681; S.A., Table-land, 677. Central America, anc ier.t, 70H. 681. Mexico. ancient, 694; Toltec empire, 7C5. Toltecans, 691. Chili, 709, 713. Spanish, 710, 714. Trade winds, 675. Climate, C.A., 680; X. A.. Minerals, N. A., 680. United Slates. 711. 676, 680; S.A., 675. Mississippi, 674. Venezuela, 712. Colombia, 712. Mountains, Brazil, 671 ; Volcanoes. Mexico, (&amp;gt;7t, Colonisation, 708. C. A., 673; N. A., G74, S. A., 673. Columbus, 707. 677; S. A., 670. Votan, 704. Discovery, European, 706. New Granada, 710. West Indies, 714. Earthquakes, S. A., 673. Nicaraguan isthmus, 715. Whitney, Professor, 689. Ecuador, 712. Panama, 715. Zoology, 681.