180 miles.




APPENDICES.


I.

BIOGRAPHY OF LAURA BRIDGMAN.


She was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the 21st December, 1829. She
is described as having been a very spritely and pretty infant, with
bright blue eyes. She was, however, so puny and feeble until she was a
year and a half old, that her parents hardly hoped to rear her. She was
subject to severe fits, which seemed to rack her frame almost beyond her
power of endurance, and life was held by the feeblest tenure; but when a
year and a half old she seemed to rally, the dangerous symptoms
subsided, and at twenty months old she was perfectly well. Then her
mental powers, hitherto stinted in their growth, rapidly developed
themselves; and during the four months of health which she enjoyed she
appears (making due allowance for a fond mother's account) to have
displayed a considerable degree of intelligence. But suddenly she
sickened again: her disease raged with great violence during five weeks,
when her eyes and ears were inflamed, suppurated, and their contents
were discharged. But, though sight and hearing were gone for ever, the
poor child's sufferings were not ended. The fever raged during seven