Grandpa Pencil's
Australian Colonial
Intelligence

8

On the 26th January, 1788, Captain Phillip arrived in Sydney Harbour, bringing with him an establishement of about 1,030 people all told.

Settlement soon spread from the parent colony, first to Tasmania in 1803, and afterwards to other parts of the continent and to New Zealand.

At the end of 1895 the population of Australasia had grown to 4,238,369 persons, thus distributed :-

Colony	Males	Females	Total
NSW	685 160	592 710	1 277 870
Vic.	605 176	576 593	1 181 769
Qld	259 160	201 390	460 550
S.A.	185 531	171 874	357 405
W.A.	69 727	31 508	101 235
Tas	85 054	75 780	160 834
N.Z.	369 725	328 981	698 706
Total	2 259 533	1 978 836	4 238 369

The growth of the population of Australasia from the date of the first settlement is shown in the following table.

An official enumeration of the people was made in most of the years quoted :-

At the close of the year 1895 the population of Australasia, including the native races, only reached a density of 1.46 persons per square mile - a rate which is far below that of any other civilised country and, excluding Australian Aborigines and Maoris, the density was not more than 1.38 per square mile.

A comparison of the density of population in Australasia with that in older countries of the world is of little practical use beyond affording some indication of the future of these colonies when their populations have reached the proportions to be found in the old world.

The latest authoratitive statements give the density of populations of the great divisions of the world as follows :-

Continent	Area 000	Pop 000	**
Europe	3 555	362 590	101.99
Asia	14 710	873 850	59.41
Africa	11 514	129 160	11.22
America	13 283	122 620	9.23
Aust	3 300	4 940	1.5
Polar regions	4 889	300	0.06
World

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