(Phoca vitulina) of these coasts. The ice-seals are alike migratory, and promiscuously gregarious; they differ much in size, and the fish of them all is very unpalateable, unless to an acquired taste, more particularly that of the old ones, differing in this respect from the flesh of the shore seal, some parts of which are very good. It remains to be proved, that some of the alleged differences in the ice-seals do not arise from age. Although the iceseals, which are sometimes met with in herds of many leagues in extent on the ice, seem to have no ordinary means of subsistence, yet the hand of uner. ring Providence maintains both old and young excessively fat. The seal-hunters often find fresh capelin and other animal substances in their stomachs. Notwithstanding the apparently immense annual destruction by man among the cod in these seas for more than two centuries, it does not appear that their numbers are at all diminish ed, or that their migrations are in any way affected: Nor is it likely that they ever will be, if we may judge from the migratory fishes of Europe that have been persecuted for many more centuries, between the North Cape and the South of England. It is not so, however, with those animals which man can pursue in his own element; thus, the walrus and the penguin, once abundant, may be said now to have entirely disappeared from the Gulf of St Lawrence. As the persecution of the seals in the field-ice increases, which it has every year since it commenced, it will be interesting to observe, at some future day not far distant, the effect on their numbers. It is not much more than 30 years since any vessels ventured out among the ice at sea, purposely equipped and manned for their destruction. The cod, the capelin, and the cuttle fish, in their natural connexion, and the seal, or rather the cod and the seal, constitute the political value of New foundland and Labrador, and render these otherwise desolate and inhospitable regions the scene of rivalry of British, French, and American national enterprise and industry. The day is not far distant when vessels will be fitted out direct from Britain for the seal-fishery at Newfoundland. On the Changes which the Laws of Mortality have undergone in Europe within the last Half Century, or from 1775 to 1825. By M. Benoiston de Chateauneuf. 1. THE physical circumstances amid which man is placed, the passions which animate him, and the political revolu tions by which he is agitated, influence his organization, alter and modify it. The inhabitant of the north, free and happy, is not born, does not propagate, and dies not, like the suffering, unhappy, and enslaved inhabitant of the south; and the calculations, whose ob ject is to determine the chances of his life, no longer afford the same results, when it is spent in affluence and inde pendence, as they do when it is passed in poverty and servitude. 2. These numerical results, therefore, whenever they can be obtained, become the truest expression of the degree of well-being, which he owes to his institutions. They furnish, says a celebrated English writer, Mr Malthus, more instruction regarding the internal economy of a people, than the most accurate observations of the tra veller. 3. In the last century, several philosophers occupied themselves in investigating the laws of mortality, and the probabilities of the duration of life, at all the periods by which its course is divided. According to their calculations, the following facts have been considered as sufficiently established:-- 4. In a growing generation, the half died in the first ten years of existence, and even sooner. 5. Three-fourths had perished before fifty years, and four-fifths at sixty; or, in other words, of a hundred individuals, fifteen only arrived at this age. 6. From eighty to a hundred years, none remained a whole generation had run its course. 7. The general proportion of deaths was determined to be as one to thirtytwo, and that of births as one to twenty-eight. 8. It was reckoned that there was one marriage in a hundred and ten or a hundred and fifteen individuals, and that the degree of fecundity was pretty accurately represented by four children for each couple, although, at the same time, this, as well as all the other relations, was liable to vary according to the places. In Spain and Italy, there were only two children from each marriage; in France and Russia four; from six to eight in Germany, and from eight to eleven in Sweden. 9. All these facts were deduced from the calculations of Necker, Moheau, and the Pommelles, in France; those of Short and Price, in England; of Sussmilch, in Germany, and of Fargentin, in Sweden. 10. Such then, about the year 1780, were the principal laws to which a more or less perfect state of society, a more or less active industry, and more or less limited means of existence, subjected the course of human life in Europe. 11. Since then facts have increased, and at the same time have become more accurate, great political changes have taken place; civilization and the arts of industry have advanced with rapidity; and science demands that we examine what may have been their influence upon human life. 12. We have seen what were its laws half a century ago: with the old state, let us compare the present. We have already said that the inquiries into this subject were now facilitated by the possession of more nu merous and more extensive documents. Of these documents we shall take the official accounts inserted in the differ ent periodical collections, which have continued to publish them with care for several years. We shall cite espe cially of these collections, the Bulletin Universel des Sciences, by Baron Ferussac, and the Annales des Voyages et de la Geographie, by Messrs Eyries and Malte-Brun, &c. 13. At the period in which we write, 1825, of a certain number of children born in Europe, there dies in the first ten years, a little more than a third (38.3 in 100), in place of the half (49.9), which formerly died. 14. From birth to fifty years, threefourths of a generation (74.2) were found to be extinct. At present, the proportion of dead to living, in the same period of time, is not more than three-twentieths, or sixty-six. 15. Lastly, twenty-three persons in a hundred now arrive at sixty, in place of eighteen, who attained that age half a century ago. 16. These proportionsare mean terms'; taken separately they become still more favourable. Thus, in France, the proportion of those who survive at sixty years is 24.3 in the hundred, while formerly it did not exceed fifteen (14.7). These results, sufficiently remarkable of themselves, give rise to others which are not less so. 17. From the 40th degree of latitude to the 65th, that is to say, upon a line which extends from Lisbon to Stockholm, embracing an extent of about a thousand leagues, and in a population of sixty-five millions of individuals, which is comprehended by Portugal, the kingdom of Naples, France, Eng land, Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden, the proportion of deaths is one in 40.35 that of births 1 in 30.1; that of mar riages 1 in 123.3; and the fecundity, four children by each marriage. 18. On comparing these relations with those of the last century, we are struck with the difference which exists in the actual mortality of early life at these two periods, a difference which is not less than that between 38 and 150. 19. This difference would itself suffice to attest the happy effects of vaccination, to which they are partly owing; but it also proves a great amelioration with respect to the cares bestowed on childhood; and those cares themselves indicate a greater prosperity and an improved condition in families. If we now reflect that it was : especially in the lower classes that the e mortality of children was enormous, we may conclude, that if these classes lose fewer at the present day, it is because they are in a better state for taking care of them, and bringing them up. 20. Nor is it less evident also, that if these same causes, as well as some others, had not extended their influence beyond the years of childhood, they would only have had the melancholy advantage of delivering over to death a greater number of victims in the stages which follow. The contrary, however, takes place, and at the present day more individuals attain the fiftieth and sixtieth year than formerly. The action of these preserving causes of childhood must therefore continue to operate upon the grown-up person during the remaining part of his career; and these preserving causes are in our eyes, to sum them up into one which contains them all, an improved state of society, a more diffused civilization, from whence results a more happy and easy existence. 21. Along with the fact of the diminution of the number of deaths, we have to place a second, which equally results from the comparison of the two epochs, namely, that of the diminution of marriages. They were formerly in the proportion of one in a hundred and ten individuals; they are now in that of one to a hundred and twenty-three. This, which is a mean term, is even too high for some countries. In France, where, according to the calculations of Necker, there was one marriage in a hundred and eleven individuals, there is only reckoned one in a hundred and thirty-five. 22. The natural consequence of the diminution of marriages is that of births. This diminution is always proportional to the increase of the popu lation; for while the proportion of marriages to it has fallen from a hundred and ten to a hundred and twen ty-three, and that of births from twenty-eight to thirty, it is yet remarked, that the one and the other are aug mented in a certain degree. 23. The fecundity would appear to have remained the same. In the present century, as in the last, the numerical expression which represents it is always four children for each marriage. But this proportion is undoubtedly not the true one, since we are obliged to include among the births that of the illegitimate children, from the defect of proper distinctions in the accounts of births, especially in foreign countries. In France, the exact proportion of births to marriages is 3.9. 24. The marriages, as well as births, have diminished in Europe within these fifty years, and yet the population is seen to increase. This apparent contradiction is explained by another fact, the very great diminution of the proportion of deaths. There was formerÎy one death in thirty-two individuals; there is at present one in 40.3. This diminution of the mortality bears chiefly upon the earlier stages of life. There are, on the one hand, more newly-born individuals that survive, and on the other more adults that grow old. 25. The necessary result of this latter state of things is the prolongation of the middle period of life, which ap. pears in fact to extend beyond the limits within which it was formerly confined. 26. The simultaneous diminution of the marriages and deaths in Europe at the present day confirms Mr Malthus's observation, that whenever the deaths are numerous, the marriages are so also; for then the vacuities must be filled up, and there is room for everybody; and that, on the contrary, whenever there are few deaths, there are also few marriages. The reason of this, in fact, is, that from the moment when the augmentation of individuals begins to fill all the paths of life, and to obstruct all its courses, the means of existence become more and more scarce and un certain. People must then be much restrained from gratifying the desire of marrying, and having a family, by the difficulty which is foreseen of providing for them. Thus, although it may appear paradoxical, it is not the less true, that there comes a period when population forms an obstacle to population, and industry arrests industry. 27. From all that has been stated, it would appear that the following conclusions may be drawn: 28. The laws of mortality, such as they were established fifty years ago by the philosophers who were then engaged in their investigation, appear since that period to have undergone the following modifications: Now, if we bring in connexion with these new laws of mortality, the political changes which have taken place in Europe within these forty years, and especially in France, we shall perhaps be correct, while at the same time it will afford us pleasure in thinking that good institutions and well regulated governments alone have this happy privilege, that, under their paternal influence, human life is preserved and prolonged, while it is consumed, and is quickly extinguished, by injustice and oppression. We had concluded this note, when M. Dureau de la Malle, who is at this moment employed in very extensive researches regarding the ancient population of Italy, communicated to us the following result: His numerous readings have satis fied him, that the senate first, and afterwards the Roman emperors, did not neglect in their administration any of the statistical accounts which several modern states collect at the present day, with so much pains and accuracy. He has even been enabled, by means of the various documents furnished by the digeste and the Roman laws, to reproduce the complete tables of the requisitions which the censors addressed to the citizens, and it is found that they entered into details in this respect, much more extended than ours, regarding the sexes, ages, professions, the different kinds of cultivation, the number of slaves, &c. But what is more interesting still, 1: 39.9 1: 31.7 1: 135.3 3.9 M. Dureau has discovered in the Pandects the calculations of the probability of life for all ages, and he has thus obtained proof that the mean duration of life in Italy was thirty years in the reign of Alexander Severus, toward the end of the third century; and it is known that this was also nearly its duration fifty years ago (twenty-eight years.) We leave to M. Dureau himself the task of presenting this fact in his work, surrounded by all the considerations which attach to it, and which will reduce it to the place which it ought to occupy in science. But the fact itself, which at once connects what is with what has been, by making to disappear an interval of two thousand years, and which refers to so early a period the first recognitions of the laws of human life, appeared to us so curious and so interesting, that we gladly availed ourselves of M. Dureau's permission to attach it to our note, and publish it. General Observations on the former and present Geological Condition of the Countries discovered by Captains Parry and Ross. By Pro fessor Jameson. The observations made during the four Arctic Expeditions, viz. that under Captain Ross, and the three under Captain Parry, afford the following general facts and inferences: 1. That the regions explored abound in primitive and transition rocks; that, although the secondary rocks occupy |