POPULATION OF THE EARTH.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 228, 2 August 1881, Page 4

POPULATION OF THE EARTH.

r« San Pranoisoo News Letter."] Two eminent German scholars. Dr, Behm and Herr Wagner, have published an estimate of the population of our globe. To obtain an absolutely correct estimate is a matter of difficulty, as but few nations ever have a census taken. Until 1853 the only modern nations whose populations had been systematically counted were the United States, Great Britain, Prussia, Prance, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Greece. Since 1853 many other countries have had censuses taken, so that at present we can ascertain with considerable exactness the number of inhabitants of each of the leading countries of Europe and America. la estimating the population of Asia, Africa, and Oceania, Messrs Behm and Wagner have been aided by the whole literature of travel, as well as by certain known laws respecting tho proportion of inhabitants to the square mile, as regulated by climate, civilisation, and circumstances. Some of their conclusions are of much interest. They estimate the population of tho great divisions of the globe thus—Europe, 315,929,000; Asia, 834 707,000 ; Africa, 205,676,000 ; America, 95,495,000; Australia and Polynesia, 4,031,000; Polar regions, 82,000, Total, 1.455.923.500. Increase since their last estimate, one year and nine months ago, 11,778,200. A few of their estimates of particular countries may interest our readers. The Dominion of Canada, they think, has now a population of 3,839,470, about one inhabitant to a (quaro mile. The population of the United States, leaving out 300,000 Indians, they conjectured, from partial returns of tho census of 1880, to be about 48,500,000; Mexico, 9,485,600 ; Greenland, 10.000. In Europe they assign to the German Empire of Frederick William, 43.943,360; the Austrian Empire, 38.000,000 ; Great Britain and Ireland, 34,517,000; Prance, 36,905,788 ; Spain, 16,625,860; Italy, 28 209,620; Sweden, 4,531,863; Norway, 1,818,853 ; Switzerland, 2,792,264; Russian Empire, 87,950,000; Turkish Empire, 25.180.000. In Asia tho Emire of China presenta to us the inconceivable population of 434.626.500. The British Ecepiro of India follows with a total of 240,298,509. Japan ia thought to have a population os 34.338,50-1. Fourteen hundred and fifty millions ia a good many people to inhabit a comparatively insignificant ball of matter whirling through space; but the earth is not half peopled. Tho island of Australia, eight thousand miles in circumference, contains about two millions of people, which is one inhabitant to every square mile and a-half of land.