1840 and 1850, a still further access of
foreigners occurred, this time of enormous dimensions, the arrivals of
the decade amounting to not less than 1,713,000. Of this gigantic total,
1,048,000 were from the British Isles, the Irish famine of 1846-47
having driven hundreds of thousands of miserable peasants to seek food
upon our shores. Again we ask, Did this excess constitute a net gain to
the population of the country? Again the answer is, No! Population
showed no increase over the proportions established before immigration
set in like a flood. In other words, as the foreigners began to come in
larger numbers, the native population more and more withheld their own
increase.

Now this correspondence might be accounted for in three different ways:
(1) It might be said that it was a mere coincidence, no relation of
cause and effect existing between the two phenomena. (2) It might be
said that the foreigners came because the native population was
relatively declining, that is, failing to keep up its pristine rate of
increase. (3) It might be said that the growth of the native population
was checked by the incoming of the foreign elements in such large
numbers.

The view that the correspondence referred to was a mere coincidence,
purely accidental in origin, is perhaps that most commonly taken. If
this be the true explanation, the coincidence is a most remarkable one.
In the June number of this magazine, I cited the predictions as to the
future population of the country made by Elkanah Watson, on the basis of
the censuses of 1790, 1800, and 1810, while immigration still remained
at a minimum. Now let us place together the actual census figures for
1840 and 1850, Watson's estimates for those years, and the foreign
arrivals during the preceding decade:

1840 1850
The census 17,069,453 23,191,876
Watson's estimates 17,116,526 23,185,368
___________ ___________
The difference -47,073 +6,508

Foreign arrivals during the preceding
decade 599,000 1,713,000

Here we see that, in spite of the arrival of 500,000 foreigners during
the period 1830-40, four times as many as had arrived during any
preceding decade, the figures of the census coincided closely with the
estimate of Watson, based on the growth of p