The age-herald., 1900-04-02
SATURDAYS MARKETS.

rfdains, as these are convenient units with which ito work.
 The population of 100 of the principal cit ies was then deducted from that of their square degrees and treated separately. Then the position of the center of the pop nlation for each square degree was esti- mated as nearly as possible. The popula- ton of each square degree, and of each city north or south of the assumed paral- lel was multiplied by it's distance from that parallel, and the sum of the north and of the south moments was made up. Their difference, divided by the total pop ulation of the country, gave the needed correction to the latitude, the sign of the correction being positive if north negative if south. Similarly, the east and west mo- ments were made up, and from them the correction in longitude was made. The re- suit gave the latitude and longitude of the point accepted the center of population
 This center, by the way has moved about in a rather interesting fashion. In 1190 1t was some twenty-three miles east of Baltimore. Between then and 1900 it moved forty-one miles almost due west to a point about eighteen miles west of Baltimore. By 1S10 it h q moved thirty six miles, westward and slightly south ward, to a point about forty miles north west by west from Washington the south ward movement appearing ito have been due to the annexation of the Louisiana terri
 
 By 1920 it had moved fifty miles west ward and slightly southward, to a point about sixteen miles north of Woodstock, Va, this second southward tendency being due to the settlements in Mississippi, Ala ban1a and Georgia. Between 1920 and 1S3O it moved thdrty-nine miles westward and southward, to a point about nineteen miles southwest of Moorefield, now in West Vrgnia-the most decided southward movement during any census period, and attributable in a-great measure to the building up of the southwest. in Louisiana, Mississippi and Arkansas especially.
 By 1S40 it had swung a little north of westward. and travelled fifty-five miles, to a spot about sixteen miles south of Clarlss- burg, w. Va, the northward movement be- ing the result of the settlement of the prairie states of the Mississippi valley. An other drop to a southerly course occurred in the next ten years, during which Texas had been annexed, the center again trav- cling ffty-five miles, and settling at a point twenty-three miles southwest of Parkers- burg, W. Va. By 1860 it had taken a north ward turn once more, and stopped about twenty miles from Chillcothe, O., eighty one miles from its latest location.
 In 1870 there were some errors of enumer- ation which probably threw it somewhat too sharply northward, carrying it forty two miles and leaving it forty-eight miles east by north of Cincinnati. Another ten years found it fifty-eght miles further on, and once more on almost the same parallel as in 1860. Between 1880 and 1890 the mlgra- tion from the north southward, which fol- lowed the civil war, was corrected, and the movement was forty-eight miles west by north, to a, place in southern Indiana, on nearly the same parallel as in 1870.
 Thus, in the first century of census-tak- ing, the center of population moved 505 miles In a generally westerly direction, from Maryland to Indiana, varying less than a half-degree, north and soreh Some of the newspaper prophets are now guess ing that the census of 1900 will show the center tp have moved somewhat to the foundation of the republic. These calcuia- tions, of course, ignore anything west of our Pacific coast proper, and may be found to have other marked shortcomings.