Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/95

Rh continued to the present day. The total immigration since 1820 amounts to 15,427,057, and of this number 40·42 per cent came from Great Britain and 29·20 per cent from Germany. Thus Great Britain and Germany have furnished 69·62 per cent of all the immigration to this country, while Norway and Sweden have supplied but six per cent. But the past decade furnishes statistics of special significance. Between 1881 and 1890 only 27·88 per cent came from Great Britain and 27·69 per cent from Germany. The immigration from Norway and Sweden has increased very much; while almost all the Hungarians, Italians, and Poles have come during the past decade. Indeed, it is said that in 1890 two thirds of the entire emigration movement of the world was directed toward the United States. The distribution of the foreign element is confined almost entirely to the Northern and Western States. In the North Atlantic division 22·34 per cent of the population is foreign born, the proportion ranging from 3077 per cent in Rhode Island to 11·94 per cent in Maine. In the North Central division 18·16 per cent of the proportion is foreign born, the extremes being North Dakota with 44·58 per cent, and Indiana with 6·67 per cent. In the Western division the proportion of foreign born is 25·46 per cent, ranging between 32·61 per cent in Montana to 7·33 per cent in New Mexico. The South Atlantic division has been affected but very little by immigration, only 2·35 per cent being foreign born. Of this group of States, Maryland has the largest proportion, 9·05 per cent, and North Carolina the smallest, with 0·23 per cent. In the South Central division the foreign element is also very slight, being only 2·93 per cent, the greatest proportion being in Texas, where it is 6·84 per cent, and the least in Mississippi, 0·62 per cent. A study of the eleventh census shows that the States which a generation ago attracted foreigners still attract them in almost the same degree. Immigration was thus turned to the North and West by economic and climatic conditions. On account of the slave system in the South, there was no inducement for immigrants to locate there; thus the ideas of this section were never modified by foreign influence; again, the Germans and other immigrants from the northern part of Europe were attracted to the Northwest on account of the climate. Accordingly, the movement of population was westward along the parallels. The institutions of the South remained unmodified by the influx of foreigners, and the sections became more and more estranged, making the civil war possible.

Another element which enters into the problem is the proportions in which the total white population is made up of native whites of native parents and of whites of foreign parentage. This is of great importance, as it presents the distribution of the native and foreign blood throughout the country. In