It is tolerably certain that, since the expulsion of the Spaniards from Mexico and South America, the quantity of silver and gold held in use there has been very much reduced; but in the United States, and in Canada and the other British colonies, it must be considerably increased. I assume that the 153,000,000 dollars allowed by Humboldt for the quantity in use in all America may, in 1848, be supposed to have risen to 220,000,000, and to be chiefly in North America. 3 For the American consumption, we may allow 2 per cent. per annum on (say) an average stock of 200,000,000 dollars, which, for forty-five years, would amount to 67,500,000 dollars. The quantity sent elsewhere than to Europe, allowing for the American trade with China, may well be supposed to have amounted to an average of at least 2,000,000 dollars a-year, or, for the forty-five years, a total of 90,000,000 dollars. The quantity sent to Europe in the forty-five years 1804-48 may then be estimated as follows: Consumed in America..... Dollars. 67,500,000 Retained in use there, in addition to the quantity so retained in 1803.... 67,000,000 Sent elsewhere than to Europe 90,000,000 From these figures, therefore, and the results which have been already obtained in the earlier parts of this paper, we obtain the following General Result. Gold and Silver-Quantity probably sent to Europe in the period £ 1,122,997,475 360,579,545 £1,483,577,020 The value of this general result cannot, if strict regard be had to the imperfect details on which it rests, be deemed great. But I trust I shall be enabled, in subsequent stages of the inquiry, of which the present paper is the first-fruit, to throw additional light upon this part of the subject from collateral sources of information. Expenditure in India on Public Works from 1837-8 to 1845-6, inclusive. By LIEUT.-COLONEL W. H. SYKES, F.R.S. [Read before the Statistical Society of London, 18th March, 1850.] VERY indefinite ideas obtaining in Europe, with respect to the number and character of Public Works carried on in India, and with respect to the sums actually expended annually upon them at the different Presidencies, I have thought it right to have the following tables framed from the official records; an inspection of which will show, at a glance, not only the various works carried on, but the sums expended upon each class of works. It is necessary to premise that under the head of Embankments and Tanks, the original cost of prodigious works at the different Presidencies, amounting to millions sterling, is not included in the table; the expenditure under the head of Embankments and Tanks being, for the most part, an annual outlay for keeping these works in an efficient state of repair. The first year in the table, 1827-8, is the year of the preparations for the disastrous and expensive Affghan campaigns, which occasioned a loss to the State of several millions sterling, and embarrassed the Indian finances. Nevertheless, in that year 173,5917. were laid out on public works in India, and in the succeeding year, when the army was in Affghanistan, and great field equipments were maintained, 323,8891. were disbursed for works of peace, nearly a third of the sum being laid out at Madras, 40,000l. of it being upon roads and bridges. Even in the year 1841-2, when matters appeared with so sinister an aspect in Affghanistan, above 300,000l. were disbursed from the impoverished treasuries upon works of utility; 103,5867. in Bengal, 72,4251. in the N. W. Provinces, 83,9797. in Madras, and 40,8527. in Bombay. During the remaining years, though the finances were burthened by the cost of the military operations for the punish ment of the Affghans; by the conquest of Scinde, which entailed an annual loss of nearly three quarters of a million sterling; and by the expenses of the Gwalior campaign and first Sikh war; in no year was a less sum than 200,000l. expended for public works; and during the nine years under review, 2,282,8947. were expended on peaceful objects, averaging 253,6547. sterling per annum,-these disbursements, in fact, being abstracted from the loans for carrying on the wars in Affghanistan, Scinde, Gwalior, and the Punjab. Subsequently to 1845-6 the second Sikh war took place, but the outlay for peaceful purposes has, nevertheless, continued; nearly a million sterling has been granted for the Ganges canal, now in rapid progress ;-40,000l. or 50,000l. for works on the Gadavery river, and 5 per cent. interest has been guaranteed on very large sums to be devoted to railways. Another great work, the triangulation, geographical delineation, and revenue survey of India has been in constant progress for more than half a century—and upon this great object more than a million sterling must have been spent. The canals in the north-west provinces consist of the Delhi canals, (Delhi and Feroz,) or the Western Jumna ;-the Doab canal, or Eastern Jumna -and the Ganges canal. The entire length of the Delhi canals is 425 miles, (Delhi 185, and Feroz 240,) and the cost 314,3807. to the 1st of May, 1844. The length of the Doab canal, or Eastern Jumna, is 135 miles, and the cost 169,8427.; and upon both canals. since their restoration, a sum of 557,000l. has been laid out. These canals were originally established under the Mogul Emperors, but fell into a state of entire dilapidation and disuse. The Delhi canal was re-opened by the British Government in 1819, Feroz's in 1825, and the Doab in 1830. The Ganges canal, now in progress of execution, will run for 452 miles, from Hurdwar to Allahabad: the estimate by the longest line was 922,6997., to which, in all probability, 50 per cent. may be added on the completion of the work. Recently, 150,000l. have been sanctioned for works upon the Kistna river. It is also necessary to be noticed, that a large amount of labour on certain classes of public works is performed by convicts, and that the charge for their maintenance, though a real addition to the Government expenditure, does not appear in the following table. It is defrayed in the Judicial Department, and is not susceptible of being readily added to the other charges in a distinctive form. For the public weal also, above 100,000l. have been spent in cotton experiments by the Government of India; and it has been most satisfactorily proved that not only cotton, with a staple suitable for the cotton machinery of England and the wants of the manufacturers, can be produced to a great extent, but it has also been proved by the sale prices in Liverpool and Manchester, that if European capital and private enterprise were engaged in the cultivation of cotton in certain parts of India, the returns would be remunerative to the speculator, and establish a basis of permanent security to the cotton manufacturing interest of Great Britain. On the whole, although less may have been spent upon public works than India, with its area, population, and revenue, might fairly demand, and the governing bodies certainly desired; yet considering the untoward, although successful wars, and the consequent necessity for an annual increase to the public debt, a good deal has nevertheless been done with borrowed money; and the time is fast approaching when continued peace will leave a surplus revenue to be annually devoted to the extension of lines of communication, whether canal, rail, or road, and to other purposes for the further development of the acknowledged resources of India. Area and Population of British India. * Independently of Native States. STATEMENT showing the Amount Expended in India on account of Public Works in cach of the following Years Contribution to the Vital Statistics of Scotland. By JAMES STARK, M.D., F.R.S.E., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. [Read before the Statistical Society of London, 20th January, 1851.] THERE is scarcely a state of Europe relative to whose Vital Statistics we know so little as that portion of the United Kingdom called Scotland. This is the more surprising, seeing that at one time the Established Church of Scotland had in operation a system of enrolment by which every marriage, birth, and death, was entered on the parochial register. In the case of the births, it was the impolitic exaction of a tax on registration, imposed in 1783, which so displeased the great mass of the population, that the dissenters, in a body, gave up the registration of the births of their children, and numerous friends of the Church followed their example. Though this impolitic tax was removed in 1794, the registration by these parties was not resumed, and since that period not a third of the births over Scotland have been entered on the parochial registers. The registration of deaths (or of burials, as it is now termed), instead of being kept by the same parties who kept the registers of births and marriages, was generally handed over to an officer called the recorder, who in many of the country parishes was at the same time the grave-digger, and was remunerated by the dues exacted for opening the graves. The office, therefore, frequently fell into the hands of illiterate men, who either wrote with difficulty, or were unable to write, so that the records of burials were either imperfectly kept, or not at all. The only registration-books which have been kept with anything approaching to accuracy, are those of the proclamations of the banns of marriage; and we are indebted for these, not to the maternal care of the Church, but to an Act of Parliament, which renders it penal for any clergyman to marry a couple without being certified by the production of the banns of marriage that the parties have been regularly proclaimed. Every one, from this statement, may at once perceive that the chief reason of the defective state of the parochial registers in Scotland has been the want of a superior board, to which reports of all these matters ought to have been duly and regularly sent. Had the Church, when she undertook the duty of registration, appointed a committee to watch over this most important department, and forced all the kirk sessions and parochial clergy to make an annual report of the numbers born, dead, and married, within their respective parishes, we should at this moment have had a most valuable collection of documents in vital statistics. The evils which arise from the want of proper registers of births, deaths, and marriages, is felt through all classes of society; and in questions affecting succession, legitimacy, and even the attainment of situations in the Army or under Government, the greatest difficulty is often experienced to prove, not only the age, place of birth, or |