"To die, is the common lot of humanity. In the grave, the only distinction lies between those who leave no trace behind and the heroic spirits who transmit their names to posterity."--_Tacitus._ I. It is always difficult to determine the natural duration of life, or the death-rate for any locality or any class of people, since the range of circumstances that affect the health of men and animals is so vast, that it requires great research, powers of analysis and comparison; so extensive a knowledge of the phenomena and the laws of life, that few men have the courage to attack, or the ability to comprehend and solve the complex problem. In our estimations we must consider what is due to the agencies of the natural world, such as geology, meteorology, and the like, as well as to age, constitution, temperament, anterior professions, and morbid predispositions, also the exaltation and demoralization of moral action. "We see," says Buffon, "that man perishes at all ages, while animals appear to pass through the period of life with firm and steady pace." The great naturalist shows how the passions, with their attendant evils, exercise great influence upon the health, and derange the principles which sustain us; how often men lead a nervous and contentious life, and that most of them die of disappointment. Buffon is right, and the English statistics show us that the duration of life is generally in proportion to its happiness and regularity, and that miserable lives are soon extinguished. Hope sometimes forsakes the stoutest hearts, and with hope disappears the mainspring of earthly life. II. In deciding upon the causes of the excessive mortality at Andersonville, there is not much obscurity to contend with. But we must admit that there must have been some mortality, for there is a determined duration of life for every species of animal; and we must also allow that under the most favorable circumstances, the death-rate of soldiers encamped in this unhealthy locality would have been far beyond the normal limit. From calculations based upon the most accurate and extensive observations made in England for a long series of years, it was determined that a mortality of less than two per cent. per annum for all ages might be assumed as a fair average rate of deaths in a population where sanitary measures were properly attended to. It is noticed by eminent observers, that the mean rate for Europe is about three per cent.; which is regarded as excessive, being about double of what is estimated as the natural ratio. Our distinguished statistician, Dr. Edward Jarvis, remarks that the mortality of two per cent. in England includes all ages--infancy as well as the last decades of life; and he states that the proper rates for comparison are those of the males in England of the military age, which is observed to be less than one per cent.