to construct new pillars more solid than the former, and closer to one another (p. 11 of this volume). The beautiful giratory light house (fanal giratorio de la Vera Cruz), of which I spoke in the twelfth chapter (p. 83 of this volume), was completed in the month of May, 1804. It will require nearly 3000 piastres annually to keep it up. (See Correo mercantil de la Vera Cruz, 1804, No. 65 and 66.)

What is said concerning the hospitals in the Balanzas del comercio de Nueva España, for 1804, 1805, and 1806, confirms what I have already said (p. 182 and 195 of this volume), on the mortality of Vera Cruz. In 1804 there entered the hospitals of that town 6075 patients, of whom 919 died. The hospital of Saint Sebastian received during the same year, 361 patients of vomito negro, of whom 232 were cured. Among the 127 who died, there were at least 40 who expired a few hours after being carried to the hospital. Frictions of oil of olives, were very successfully employed in the royal hospital. In the year 1805, the epidemic of the vomito almost entirely ceased towards the end of the month of June; and in 1806, of 8600 patients received into the different hospitals, only 27 were attacked with the yellow fever, although the season was extraordinarily rainy (p. 197 of this volume).

State of the Hospitals of Vera Cruz, in 1806.

At Mexico in 1805, there entered the 12 hospitals, 18,398 patients, whereof 1773 died. The mortality was then 9, per cent. At la Puebla, it was 15; for of 6566 patients who entered in 1806, the hospital of San Pedro, 1032 died.

The total number of deaths at Vera Cruz, including the hospitals, in 1806, was 663. Now according to the calculation of M. Don Jose Maria Quiros, the population of the town at that period was composed of 35,510 souls; viz. habitual population 20,000; sailors and seafaring people 3640; muleteers necessary to take care of 49,139 mules, and other beasts of burden, for the carrying of goods from Perote and Orizaba, to Vera Cruz, 7,370; strangers, travellers, and militia, 4,500 individuals. Hence the average mortality, at a period when the epidemic of the vomito did not prevail, was only 1 per cent. In 1805, it amounted to 2,8 per cent, the number of deaths being 1049, and the total population 36,230 souls. It is

true this population contained at most 5000 children, from one to ten years of age, and that the mortality is every where less considerable, where the majority of the inhabitants are young and robust men, accustomed to fatigue, and change of climate. However all these calculations and considerations which we have been stating, sufficiently prove that in years when the yellow fever does not commit its ravages, the port of Vera Cruz is not more pernicious to health, than the greater number of maritime towns situated under the torrid zone.