Waterbury evening Democrat., 1891-09-04
CENTER OF POPuLATIoN.
How It Shifts with Each Succeeding
 Enn


 Enumeration.
 The center of population in the United States was located by the recent census in southern Indiana. Its exact point, in Decatur county, a little west of south of Greensburg, and twenty miles east of Co1um bus. Ind, has been marked by the erection there of pillar of limestone.
 This is only the second time that one of these points, which have indicated in such forcible manner the growth of our nation, has been marked by monument There is still to be seen, at spot about forty miles to the north west of Washington, D. C., a flat stone with the words Centre of Population" cut on it, which was placed there in 1910.
 Every observant person is aware that the center of population shifts with every new census, and that this move ment has been from east to west, some times bending south and then again north, but always trending westward. One hundred years ago it was twenty three miles east of Baltimore, and twenty years later it had moved to a point forty miles northwest by west from Washington.
 In 1920 it was near Woodstock, Va., and in 1850 it was 7sineteen miles south west of Moorefield (now in West Vir- ginia). In 184O it was near Clarksburg, Va, and ten years later it had nearly reached Parkersburg. In 1860 the center was twenty miles from Chilli cothe, O., and in 1870 forty-eight miles east by north of Cincinnati, o. In 1880 the center had returned to the same latitude as in 1860, and in 1890 was To eated as above described.
 The peculiarity of the movement is the adherence to the thirty y-ninth paral- Tel and the steady march westward at the average rate of five miles year, or five hundred and five miles in a century. But the greatest curiosity expressed by the ordinary reader is to find out how this center of population is determined The explanation is not by any means an easy one, and if the | official explanation in mathematical language is given, it is quite incompre- l hensible.
 Perhaps the answer is best arrived at | by putting a supposititious case. If we | take a plate of wood or metal, four | inches square, and divide it into four equal parts by two lines, it is evident that the plate would exactly balance | if stuck on a pivot at the point whene the lines intersect. That is | plain enough, and so also if the plate is circular or oblong; and it is also evil dent that the plate would balance, no matter how much weight was placed on it. so long as that weight was equal | ly distributed over the surface. But suppose one quarter section has twice as much weight as any other section? | Then, to balance the plate, the pivot | must be advanced toward the excess of weight. Now, instead of circle, square or oblong, suppose we have an irregu- | lar figure. It is seen at once that the l problem becomes more difficult, al- | though the principle remains the same. In practice you would experiment with your pivot until you found the center of gravity; but if you had plate so large that you could not handle it you would | be obliged to resort to mathematical computation.
 | This is what is done in finding the center of population. The surface area of the United States is con- | ceived to be a smooth plate, and all the inhabitants, big and little, ! are imagined to be units of equal weight If this great plate could be l suspended in the air, as you would a sheet of tin, there would be some point on which the plate would exactly bal ance on a pivot, and that point would be the center of population. To find this exact point is mammoth mathe- matical task, and can only be found by long and patient calculation and the use of the highest branches of arithmetic. Even then, as the center of population is moving every day, the result can not be exactly correct, but it is sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes.
 It is idle to conjecture where the cen ter of population will be ten years hence, but it is probable that it will eventually rest somewhere in Kansas. But it may be another century before the states become so settled that the center of population shall remain sta tionary, or fluctuate only within incon siderab ble limits. s.--Golden Days,