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Sixthly, and lastly, as the dreary abode of badgers, foxes, and wolves, preying upon the increasing flocks of a country whose inhabitants were at length settling down into peaceful occupations; until, these vermin effectually exterminated, the Craven caves were left to the custody of rats, who fed for ages upon the bones of their numerous predecessors. It was

reserved for our own century to witness here the first enthusiastic groping and grubbing of the antiquary, associated with the dimly theorizing generalization of the geologist and ethnologist.

The sister sciences of Geology and Archæology, great and splendid as have been the recent efforts and successes of their more earnest professors, evidently offer a glorious harvest in the future. They may not be inaptly termed dark, mystic and long neglected chambers in the great temple of human knowledge, the mere portals of which have as yet alone been traversed, even by the most daring and enthusiastic of their votaries.

NOTE. The foregoing description of the Craven district appearing somewhat meagre as regards its geological features, the writer will, he trusts, be excused in his adding some characteristic remarks of Mr. Gilbert Baker, in his North Yorkshire; Studies of its Botany, Geology, Climate and Physical Geography, which will be found to bear an important relation to the subject-matter of this paper.

"The Lower Mountain Limestone is more or less exposed to view in "the depths of each of the three principal dales of the western moor"lands-Teesdale, Swaledale and Yoredale. A long line of strongly "marked dislocation passes northward from the Ingleborough district "to the mountains round the source of the South Tyne, an idea of the "tremendous character of which may be gathered from the fact that

• Longman and Co., London, 1863.

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"for a length of forty-five miles, the strata are displaced to the extent "of at least 3,000 feet. An observer stationed upon the elevated edge "on the east of this line, stands upon millstone-grit strata, with a thick "mass of mountain limestone beneath them, and sees out-stretched, "2,000 feet below him, the valley of the Eden and the plain of Carlisle, "where these same mountain limestone and millstone-grit beds are "buried beneath superincumbent deposits of New Red Sandstone. "Along this main line of dislocation, known by the name of the "Pennine Fault, and in the Craven country about Settle, the lower "mountain limestone is seen to the best advantage. Here it forms a 'compact calcareous mass about four hundred feet in thickness, with 'very little interpolation of non-calcareous material, with numerous "vertical fissures; and in some places, as for instance on the south. eastern slope of Ingleborough, it may be seen with its lower beds full "of broken slate boulders resting upon masses of dark coloured Silurian "slate. The steep precipices which girdle Langstrothdale, Littondale, "Gordale, Ribblesdale, Ingletondale and Kingsdale, and the thick mass "of caverned and fissured limestone that forms the general base of "the well-known Craven hills, Fountains Fell, Inlgeborough, Penny"ghent and Whernside, must all be referred here. Along the western "border of the county it forms the lower part of the great Pennine escarpment, still shewing fine limestone scaurs as far north as the country round the head of the Tees. As it passes towards the north, "both along the edge of this line and in the interior of the moorland

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mass, it loses the distinctly marked calcareous stamp which charac"terizes it in Craven, and the farther it goes in that direction argillaceous and arenaceous bands are more and more mixed up with the "limestone."

46

ON SOME RESULTS OF THE CENSUS OF

THE DEAF AND DUMB IN 1861.

By David Buxton, F.R.S.L.,

Principal of the Liverpool School for the Deaf and Dumb.

(READ 16TH FEBRUARY, 1865.)

I CANNOT claim for the present subject that it is one of popular or even general interest; but its importance is beyond dispute. As a matter of education, and as a department of social science, it is interesting to some who have no special concern with the deaf and dumb; but to those who have such an interest, no subject can be more attractive.

The first decennial census of Great Britain which collected facts on this subject was that of 1851. Those facts, though imperfect, were valuable. Still they stood alone. Comparison was impossible, for we had not the means of comparison. Now we have. The census of 1861 has given us another group of facts, treating of the same class of persons, going over the same ground, after an interval of ten years. So now, for the first time we have, in this particular branch of enquiry, those means of comparison which have been so largely employed, with such valuable results, in other fields of investigation with which the census deals.

Such comparison I purpose now to enter upon.

In order to present the enquiry in the form which will be most in harmony with the scope of the social science philanthropist and the friend of education, I shall address myself in the first instance to the proper answer to two enquiries.

1. Has the number of the deaf and dumb increased between 1851 and 1861 ?

2. Has education, or the means of education, increased in an equal or greater proportion?

Our first enquiry then is---Has the number of the deaf and dumb increased since 1851? The answer is-Yes. And if we further ask-Where has this increase taken place? The answer is-In every part of the United Kingdom. In Great Britain and the islands of the British seas, taking the total, there is an increase; and the same is found in every separate member contributing to that aggregate, viz., England and Wales, Ireland, Scotland and the islands in the adjacent seas. In Great Britain and Ireland, and the islands, the deaf and dumb have increased during the years 1851-1861 from a total of 17,300, or 1 in 1,590, to 20,311, or 1 in 1,432. Not only is this so, but in every one of the eleven registration divisions in England and Wales the same result is shown. Deaf mutes have increased throughout the United Kingdom as follows:

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The total given in the Irish Returns is 5,653, but 723 are stated to be "Dumb, not Deaf."

Thus we see that in every District the number of the deaf and dumb has increased, and we know that the aggregate population has increased as well. But besides this, in every separate District but one, the proportion of the deaf and dumb to the general population has increased also that is to say, in any given number of our population, there is a larger number of deaf and dumb persons now than there was in 1851. The rate of increase in the general population is 12 per cent., but the increase in the number of the deaf and dumb during the same period was 19 per cent. There were-e.g., in the two counties of Lancaster and Chester, which form our own immediate district—1,582 deaf and dumb in 1861, or 1 in 1,856, as against 1,237 in 1851, or 1 in 2,014.*

In the South Western District (Wilts, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall, Somerset) the proportion of the deaf and dumb to the population has undergone scarcely any change (the difference between 1 in 1,393 in 1851 and 1 in 1,390 in 1861 being quite immaterial); and in the district of Wales alone the proportion is absolutely less. The number of deaf mutes has increased from 771 to 814, but the general population has increased in a much greater proportion; so that the deaf and dumb in the Principality, who in 1851 were as 1 in 1,542, were in 1861 as 1 in 1,613.

This is the only instance of the kind-the only exception to the general rule of increased proportion throughout the

census returns.

Thus our first question is fully and completely answered. Between 1851 and 1861 the deaf mute population of the United Kingdom increased very largely.

* A portion of this increase is probably due to the fact that the returns were made with greater accuracy at the last census than in 1851, when the deaf and dumb were separately enumerated for the first time. It is right to mention this, though it does not affect the fact that we have actually a larger deaf and dumb population now than we had then, and therefore require increased means of education.

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