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tality is found by the census to rise above, though not much
above, the general average of the whole country. In every
few years, however, it is well known that the low portions
from Norfolk, southward and extending around the Gulf of
Mexico, are visited by epidemic disease, when the mortality
rises much higher than the ordinary amount." This
Division, northwardly, begins in Maryland, and here the
above description does not suit. The part of it in Maryland
is very different from where " the sea and shore meets for the
most part in a mingled series of bays, inlets, estuaries and
small islands just above tide."

The description of the soil, as applied to tide-water, is
equally inaccurate, and the facts in the last sentence of the
Report not only do not apply to the Maryland part of this
division, but are totally opposite to them as they exist in it.
This sentence is as follows : "In every few years, however,
it is well known that the low portions from Norfolk south-
ward, and attending around the Gulf of Mexico, are visited
by epidemic diseases, when the mortality rises much higher
than the ordinary amount." Now, the Maryland part of
this division has been singularly exempt above all the rest of
the country from epidemics. When the cholera of 1832 vis-
ited and made almost every home a house of mourning in the
United States, the rural part of this region escaped its rav-
ages. It nowhere assumed, in this part of Maryland, an
epidemic form. Very few cases originated here; some few
deaths occurred from it, but the disease was taken in cities
away from this section and did not spread even when brought
into it. This shows how strong the natural agencies are, here,
which counteract the generative and spread of the fatal epidem-
ic. What is true of the cholera in 1832 is equally true of
it at its second visitation in 1849 and its last visitation, and
the same is true of the yellow fever and other general
epidemics. Another table in the same report, that of the
"Deaths in the United States for the year ending June 1st,
1860," is equally conclusive in favor not only of the superior
health of Maryland, but, when properly estimated, of the
peculiar health of this tide-water section.

That table shows that the per centage of deaths is less in
Maryland than any other of the "old thirteen," except Penn-
sylvania, the deaths in Maryland being 1.09 (one and nine
one hundredths of one per cent,) and in Pennsylvania, 1.06,
(one and six one hundredths of one per cent only, and .03 per
eent only at the rate of three one hundredths of one per cent
more in Maryland than in Pennsylvania. Now make due
allowance for the greater proportion of the city to the coun-
try population in Maryland, than in Pennsylvania, and the
difference in favor of the latter is not only destroyed, but
stands in favor of Maryland, but make the farther allowance
for the "excessive mortality" amongst the free negro popu-