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Ch. IX.] EFFECTS OF THE DIFFUSION OF MAN.
fal soil, each capable of supporting 200 persons; andDearly six million, each mile capable of supporting 490persons.* If this conjecture be true, it will follow, asthat author observes, that if the natural resources ofAmerica were fully developed, it would afford sus-tenance to five times as great a number of inhabitantsas the entire mass of human beings existing at presentUpon the globe. The new continent, he thinks, thoughless than half the size of the old, contains an equalquantity of useful soil, and much more than an equalamount of productive power. Be this as it may, we^ay safely conclude that the amount of human popu-lation now existing constitutes but a small proportion°f that which the globe is capable of supporting, orw hich it is destined to sustain at no distant period, bythe rapid progress of society, especially in America ,Australia , and certain parts of the old continent.
Power of exterminating species no prerogative of man.
But if we reflect that many millions of square miles°f the most fertile land, occupied originally by a bound-less variety of animal and vegetable forms, have beenalready brought under the dominion of man, and com-pelled, in a great measure, to yield nourishment toBira, and to a limited number of plants and animals"'hich he has caused to increase, we must at once beconvinced, that the annihilation of a multitude of spe-cies has already been effected, and will continue to go°n hereafter, in certain regions, in a still more rapidratio, as the colonies of highly civilized nations spreadthemselves over unoccupied lands.
Yet, if we wield the sword of extermination as weDdvance, we have no reason to repine at the havoc