out afoot, by dog-teams, canoes, steamboats--up rivers,
over mountains, through forests. The Indian Territory was for the first
time canvassed like other portions of the Union, and so was the new
territory of Hawaii.

The United States were divided into 207 supervisor districts and 53,000
enumeration districts. Enumeration began June 1, 1900, continuing two
weeks in cities, elsewhere thirty days. Persons in the navy, army, and
on Indian reservations were numbered. For those in institutions there
were special enumerators. Each enumerator used a "street-book" or daily
record, individual slips for returns of persons absent when the
enumerator called, and an "absent family" schedule.

The returns were tabulated by an electrical device first employed ten
years before. Its work was automatic and so fine that it would even
obviate errors. For instance, age, sex, etc., being denoted by
punch-holes in cards, the machine would refuse to pass a card punched to
indicate that the person was three years old and married.

Nearly 2,000 employees toiled upon the census during the latter part of
1900, and nearly a thousand during the entire year, 1901. From July 14,
1900, piecemeal results were announced almost daily. By October the
population of the principal cities was out. A preliminary statement of
total population was given to the press, October 30, 1900, followed by a
verified one a month later. The first official report on population was
made December 6, 1901, within eighteen months from the completion of the
enumerators' work. Results were first issued in sixty bulletins, all
subsequently included in the first half of the first volume. Two volumes
were devoted to population, three to manufactures, two to agriculture,
and two to vital statistics. One contained an abstract of the whole.
Following these came volumes on special lines of inquiry.

[Illustration: Several people reviewing records.]
Census Examination.

The population of the United States, not including Porto Rico or the
Philippines, was found to be 76,303,387, an increase of not quite 21 per
cent. in the decade, or less than during any previous similar period of
our history. All the States and territories save Nevada were better
peopled than ever before. Nevada lost 10.6 per cent. of her inhabitants,
as against two and a half times that percentage between 1880 and 1890,
occupying in 1900 about the same tracks as in 1870. Oklahoma people
increased 518.2 per cent.