DISCUSSION OF POPULATION TABLES.

TOTAL POPULATION.

The population of Porto Rico, shown by the schedules of the recent census, taken as of November 10, 1899, was 953,243. This is a little more than two-thirds that of Cuba in 1899 and about the same as that of West Virginia in 1900. Previous censuses of the island in comparison with this show the following results:

From the above figures the decennial rates of increase have been computed, with the following results:

The above figures show a remarkably uniform gradation in the rate of increase from 56 per cent per decade between 1765 and 1775 down to 9 per cent between 1877 and 1887. The surprising rise between the last two censuses may be due to a more thorough enumeration in 1899 than ever before, although it must be said that if the lower rates of increase in earlier periods had been due to imperfect enumeration, it was scarcely to be expected that the series of rates of increase above given would have shown as smooth a curve.

The last rate of increase, that between 1887 and 1899, is much less than that of the United States between 1890 and 1900 (21 per cent), but agrees with that of the state of Arkansas for the same decade.

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1760

1770

1780

1790

1800

1810

1820

1830

1840

1850

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Before making a comparison for departments and municipal districts between the population in 1887 and that in 1899 five changes call for mention. Three of them are merely nominal. The San Juan department of 1887 appears in the present census as Bayamon, the Sabana del Palmar district of 1887 is now Comerio district, and the Hato Grande district of 1887 is now San Lorenzo. Two municipal districts no longer appear in any shape in the list, for Ceiba has been consolidated with Fajardo, and Luquillo has been divided between Rio Grande and Fajardo. As the last change affects the boundary between two departments, in preparing the table below the municipal district of Rio Grande has been included in the department of Humacao, in order to ensure that the comparison in every case is for identical areas.

The boundaries between these departments divide the island, by lines trending either north and south or east and west, into four regions, which may be called the eastern (department of Humacao), east central (departments of Bayamon and Guayama), west central (departments of Arecibo and Ponce), and western (departments of Aguadilla and Mayaguez). Each of these four divisions, except the first, is subdivided into a northern and a southern part.

An inspection of the preceding table, with these facts in mind, shows that the central departments, except Guayama, increased faster than any of the three at the east and west ends of the island; that of the three departments at the ends of the island those at the west grew faster than Humacao, and of the four central departments the two west central ones grew faster than either of the east central ones. Each department on the north coast also grew more rapidly than the department directly south of it, viz, Aguadilla faster than Mayaguez, Bayamon faster than Guayama, and Arecibo faster than Ponce. The three most populous departments are the ones in which the rate of increase was above the average for the whole island.

Among the 69 municipal districts into which these departments are subdivided 7 decreased in population between 1887 and 1899. As all of them lie on the coast, their situation suggests that the coast districts as a whole may have grown more slowly than the interior of the island. To test this hypothesis the population of the coast districts

and of the interior districts has been found separately for 1887 and 1899 with the following results:

From these figures it appears that the average increase of population in the interior has been more rapid than that on the coast. If the figures for the coast cities of San Juan, Ponce, and Mayaguez had been excluded the difference would have been more marked. The depressed condition of sugar-cane growing in the West Indies of recent years may have played an important part in producing this difference, for the growing of sugar cane is common in the coast plains of Porto Rico. The area of Porto Rico, including the adjacent and dependent islands of Vieques, Culebra, Mona, and Muertos, has been measured in connection with this census and found to be 3,606 square miles. But owing to the imperfect surveys on which all maps of Porto Rico are based, there must be a considerable and indeterminate margin of possible error in any such measurement. The island is about three times the size of Long Island, which was in 1890 perhaps the largest insular division of the United States. It is also slightly greater than the eastern shore of Maryland (3,461 square miles).

The relative sizes of the larger West Indies are as follows: Cuba, the greatest, is about equal in area to all the rest combined. Haiti, the second, is about two-thirds the size of Cuba, while on the other hand it is seven times the size of Jamaica and eight times the size of Porto Rico. Porto Rico, again, is more than double the size of the fifth island, Trinidad, which is itself about three times the size of the sixth island, Guadeloupe.

The area, population, and density of population of the seven departments of Porto Rico are given below.

Porto Rico has 264 persons to a square mile. This density of popu

lation is about the same as in New Jersey, nearly twice that in Pennsyl