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In Numbers

Jedidiah Buxton, was a prodigy, with respect to skill in numbers. His father, William Buxton, was schoolmaster of the parish where he was born, in 1704 : yet Jedediah's education was so much neglected, that he was never taught to write; and with respect to any other knowledge but that of numbers, seemed always as ignorant as a boy of ten years of age. How he came first to know the relative proportions of numbers, and their progressive denominations, he did not remember; but to this he applied the whole force of his mind, and upon this his attention was constantly fixed, so that he frequently took no cognizance of external objects, and, when he did it, it was only with respect to their numbers. If any space of time was mentioned, he would soon after say it was so many minutes; and if any distance of way, he would assign