given are not for periods of sufficient extent to establish the
fact. It is highly probable, however, that Sweden, Norway, and
Russia, are really increasing their population, though not at the
rate that the proportion of births to burials for the short
periods that Dr Price takes would seem to shew. (See Dr Price's
Observations, Vol. ii, postscript to the controversy on the
population of England and Wales.) For five years, ending in 1777,
the proportion of births to burials in the kingdom of Naples was
144 to 100, but there is reason to suppose that this proportion
would indicate an increase much greater than would be really
found to have taken place in that kingdom during a period of a
hundred years.

Dr Short compared the registers of many villages and market
towns in England for two periods; the first, from Queen Elizabeth
to the middle of the last century, and the second, from different
years at the end of the last century to the middle of the
present. And from a comparison of these extracts, it appears that
in the former period the births exceeded the burials in the
proportion of 124 to 100, but in the latter, only in the
proportion of 111 to 100. Dr Price thinks that the registers in
the former period are not to be depended upon, but, probably, in
this instance they do not give incorrect proportions. At least
there are many reasons for expecting to find a greater excess of
births above the burials in the former period than in the latter.
In the natural progress of the population of any country, more
good land will, caeteris paribus, be taken into cultivation in
the earlier stages of it than in the later. (I say 'caeteris
paribus', because the increase of the produce of any country will
always very greatly depend on the spirit of industry that