After all these reasons for receiving the total of 1812 as the best one, there are, on the other hand, two principal objections against taking the Chinese census as altogether trustworthy. The first is the enormous averages of 850, 705, and 671 inhabitants on a square mile, severally apportioned to Kiangsu, Nganhwui, and Chehkiang, or, what is perhaps a fairer calculation, of 458 persons to the nine eastern provinces. Whatever amount of circumstantial evidence may be brought forward in confirmation of the census as a whole, and explanation of the mode of taking it, a more positive proof seems to be necessary before giving implicit credence to this result. Such a population on such an extensive area is marvellous, notwithstanding the fertility of the soil, facilities of navigation, and salubrity of the climate of these regions, although acknowledged to be almost unequalled. While we admit the full force of all that has been urged in support of the census, and are willing to take it as the best document on the subject extant, it is desirable to have proofs derived from personal observation, and to defer the settlement of this question until better opportunities are afforded. So high an average is, indeed, not without example. Captain Wilkes ascertained, in 1840, that one of the islands of the Fiji group supported a population of over a thousand on a square mile. On Lord North’s Island, in the Pelew group, the crew of the American whaler Mentor ascertained there were four hundred inhabitants living on half a square mile. These, and many other islands in that genial clime, contain a population far exceeding that of any large country, and each separate community is obliged to depend wholly on its own labor. They cannot, however, be cited as altogether parallel cases, though if it be true, as Barrow says, “that an acre of cotton will clothe two or three hundred persons,” not much more land need be occupied with cotton or mulberry plants, for clothing in China, than in the South Sea Islands.