Wye, which rises aoout half a mile off, makes its exit. The old town (High Buxton) is rather higher than the new, and consists of one wide street, and a considerable market place with an old cross With the exception of some good inns and lodging-houses, the buildings in this part are commonplace. The new town is of a more elegant character, and has been greatly extended within the last twenty or thirty years. The crescent is a fine range of buildings in the Doric style, erected by the duke of Devonshire in 1779-86, at a cost of £120,000. It contains hotels, a ballroom, a bank, a library, and other establishments, and the surrounding open grounds have been laid out in terraces and gardens under the control of the Buxton Improvements Company. The Old Hall Hotel at the west end of the crescent is remarkable as the site of the mansion built by the earl of Shrewsbury in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, which was the residence of Queen Mary of Scotland when she visited the town. The new church was erected in 1812 by the duke of Devonshire; the edifice which it superseded has since been restored. The mineral waters of Buxton, the most noted in England, are particularly efficacious in cases of rheumatism and gout. There are numerous public and private baths, the most important of which are those in the new and spacious establishment at the eastern end of the crescent. The springs supply hot and cold water at a very short distance of each other, flowing at the rate of 60 gallons a minute. The former possesses a uniform temperature of 82° Fahr., and the principal substances in solution are, according to the analysis of Dr Muspratt in 1860—carbonate of lime, carbonate of magnesia, chloride of sodium, chloride of calcium, and silica. There is also a chalybeate spring known as St Anne’s well, situated at the S.W. corner of the crescent, the water of which when mixed with that of the other springs proves purgative. The Devonshire Hospital, formerly known as the Bath Charity, is a benevolent institution, supported entirely by voluntary subscriptions, for the reception and free treatment of poor patients from any part of the country. About 900 or 1000 persons are annually indebted to its founders. The Buxton season extends from June to October, and during that period the town is visited by thousands annually. The public walks are tastefully laid out. The Cavendish Terrace, 500 yards long, forms a fine promenade; there are excellent drives in the park, which occupies more than 100 acres, and the neighbourhood of the town is rich in objects of interest. Of these the chief are—Poole’s Hole, a vast stalactite cave, about half a mile distant, now lighted with gas for the convenience of visitors; Diamond Hill, which owes its name to the quartz crystals which are not unfrequent in its rocks; and Chee Tor, a remarkable cliff, on the banks of the Wye, 300 feet high. Ornaments are manufactured by the inhabitants from alabaster and spar; and excellent lime is burned at the quarries near Poole’s Hole. Other places of interest, but more distant, are the caverns and mines of Castleton, Haddon Hall, and Chatsworth, the seat of the duke of Devonshire. The population in 1871 within the jurisdiction of the Local Board of Health was 3717; but the fluctuating population during summer varies from 4000 to 5000 at a time.

To judge from the remains of baths and other structures which have at various times been discovered, and the fact that they are situated near the crossing of two military roads, it seems almost certain that the mineral springs of Buxton were known to the Bomans; but by what name they were then designated has not been ascertained. We find them a favourite resort in the period before the Reformation, when the patients were in the habit of offering their cratches or articles of attire to the image of St Anne, the tutelar saint, in token of their gratitude for benefit derived from the springs. Sir William Basset, at the command of Henry V11I., destroyed the “tabernacle” and prohibited the practice; but the wells seem to have lost none of their reputation by the loss of their saint, and continued to be a favourite resort in the last part of the century. Their praises were sounded in 1572 by John Jones, “Phisition at the King’s Mede, near Darby,” in The Benefits of the Ancient Baths of Buckstones, and at a later period they were celebrated by Hobbes and Cotton in their respective accounts of the wonders of the Peak. See also Thomas Brown’s Tour in Derbyshire, and among modern works, Sir Charles Scudamore’s Tepid Springs of Buxton, 1839; Robertson’s Mineral Waters, 1854; L. Jewitt’s History of Buxton.

BUXTON, Jedediaπ, a prodigy of skill in numbers, was born in 1704, at Elιnton, near Chesterfield in Derbyshire. Although his father was schoolmaster of the parish, and his grandfather had been the vicar, his education had been so neglected that he could not write; aud his knowledge, except of numbers, was extremely limited. How he came first to know the relative proportions of numbers, and their progressive denominations, he did not remember; but on such matters his attention was so constantly rivetted, that he frequently took no cognizance of external objects, and when he did, it was only with reference to their numbers. He worked out every question after his own method, without any external aid, and without understanding the common rules of arithmetic. He would stride over a piece of land or a field, and tell the contents of it almost as exactly as if it had been measured by the chain. In this manner he measured the whole lordship of Elmton, consisting of some thousand acres, and gave the contents not only in acres, roods, and perches, but even in square inches. After this, for his own amusement, he reduced them into square hairs’-breadths, reckoning forty-eight to each side of the inch. His memory was so great, that in resolving a question he could leave off and resume the operation again at the same point after the lapse of a week, or even of several months. His perpetual application to figures prevented the smallest acquisition of any other knowledge. On his return from church it never appeared that he had brought away one sentence, his mind having been busied in his favourite occupation. His wonderful faculty was tested in 1754 by the Royal Society of London, who acknowledged their satisfaction by presenting him with a handsome gratuity. During his visit to the metropolis he was taken to see the tragedy of Richard III. performed at Drury Lane theatre, but his whole mind was given to the counting of the words uttered by Garrick. Similarly, he set himself to count the steps of the dancers; and he declared that the innumerable sounds produced by the musical instruments had perplexed him beyond measure. He lived till about the age of seventy, and died at the place of his birth.

BUXTON, Sir Thomas Fowell (1786-1845), a distinguished philanthropist, whose name is inseparably associated with that of Wilberforce in the abolition of slavery, was born in Essex, April 1,1786. He was not educated at any of the public schools, and at about the age of eighteen he entered Trinity College, Dublin, with a very slender stock of acquirements. But he was aware of his defects, and laboured so earnestly that he came out one of the first meu of his time, and with an extraordinarily high reputation as a speaker. In 1809 he married Harriet Gurney, sister of the celebrated Mrs Fry. A3 his own means were not of themselves sufficient to support his family, he entered in 1808 the brewery establishment of Truman, Hanbury, and Co., of which his uncles, the Hanburys, were partners. He devoted himself to business with characteristic enthusiasm, became a partner in 1811, and soon had the whole concern in his hands. In 1816 he brought himself into notice by his speech in behalf of the Spitalfields weavers, and in 1818 he published his able Inquiry into Prison Discipline. The same year he was elected member for Weymouth, a borough for which he continued to sit till 1837. Iu the House of Commons he had a high reputation as an able and straightforward speaker, devoted to philanthropic schemes. Of these plans the most important was that for the abolition of slavery in the British colonies. Buxton devoted his life to this object, and through defeat and opposition, despite the attacks of enemies and the remonstrances of faint-hearted friends, he remained true to it. Not till 1833 was he successful, and even then only partially, for he was compelled to admit some clauses against which his better judgment had decided. In 1837 he ceased to sit in the House of Commons. He travelled on the Continent in 1839 to recruit his health, which had given way, and took the opportunity of inspecting Continental prisons. He was made a baronet in 1840, and then devoted himself to a plan for ameliorating the condition of the African negroes, The failure of the Niger expedition was a blow from which he never recovered. He died on the 19th February 1845. (See Memoir and Correspondence of Sir T. F. Buxton, edited by his son, Charles Buxton, 1848.)