Meantime the total white population has advanced from 1,955 to 6,681 myriads; or, since 1860, from 2,692 to 6,681--not quite two and one-half times. But we must remember the desolating war that ravaged the North, and particularly the South, of its Caucasian bloom for four years, and left the latter utterly prostrate. This is shown in the fearful descent in gain from 377 to 248. The gain in that decade should have been about 900 instead of 667, which would have given the Whites about 8,100 myriads in 1900--almost exactly tripling the return of 1860. By natural increase, then, the white population about triples itself in forty years, while the black about doubles. Hence, the latter must form an ever-diminishing fraction of the whole population. In fact, the number of Negroes per thousand of the whole population, since 1790, is as follows: 1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 193 189 190 184 182 168 157 141 127 131 119 116 We have seen that the estimate for 1870 is certainly much too low, as also extremely probably that for 1890. In any case, it is hereby proved that the black is rapidly falling in ratio to the white population. Such a descent, pursued for a few centuries, would bring it to comparative insignificance. To be sure, it must not be forgotten that the White increase is due largely to immigration. But there seems to be no reason why this immigration should not be continued indefinitely; at present it is particularly heavy and will weigh very perceptibly in the census of 1910. Again, it must not be disguised that the birth rate among the older New England stock of native white Americans has fallen lamentably low--even beneath the point of bare race maintenance. A thousand such couples rear only about 950 couples. This race decay seems, surely, the most alarming symptom in our national life--a tendency which it seems exceedingly hard to combat. However, there are yet vigorous and prolific Caucasian tribes in great abundance on the face of the earth; and if the native white American prefers to die out, why, let him die--no one can help it. The white foreigner will certainly step in and fill his place more virilely, if not more worthily. There is nothing, then, in this phenomenon, humiliating though it is, to shake the conclusions already stated. But an even more interesting matter than the relation of the Negro to the Union at large is his relation to special sections. The grand divisions in the census reports are North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Central, South Central, and Western. In only two of these, the South Atlantic and the South Central, is the Negro really a problem. In the others, he is a vanishing quantity. Thus, in the North Atlantic and the North Central, his myriads are only: 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 North Atlantic 15 16 18 23 27 39 North Central 14 18 27 39 43 50