Letters held for postage numbered: Foreign address, 13,959; domestic address, 117,070; misdirected, 366,524; blank, 14,134; unmailable, containing lottery tickets, etc., 1797; addressed to hotels, 112,648; fictitious addresses, 24,383.

Packages held for postage were 9774; misdirected, 10,596; blank, 13,389; unmailable, 7775; excess of weight or measure, 1144.

Foreign letters and packages received and disposed of by the dead-letter office numbered 477,198; of these, 456,630 were returned to the country of origin; 591 were delivered to addressees; misdirected letters to the number of 12,070 were forwarded to the correct address.

The number of letters and packages originating in the U. S. and returned by foreign countries as undeliverable was 210,436. The letters, newspapers, parcels, etc., received in the returned letter offices of Great Britain, 1887-88, numbered 13,436,600.

DEAD NETTLE, Lamium, a genus of plants of the natural order labiata, having a 5-toothed calyx and a 2-lipped corolla, the upper lip arched, the lower lip trifid. The name D. N.-popularly in some parts both of England and Scotland, Dee nettle—is also often extended to the genera galeopsis and galeobdolon, genera very similar to lamium, the first of which is sometimes distinguished by botanists as hemp-nettle, the second as weasel-snout. Lamium purpureum, L. incisum, L. album, and galeopsis tetrahit, are very common British weeds, some of them appearing in almost every garden, cornfield, or piece of waste ground. L. purpureum and L.album are sometimes boiled as pot-herbs in Sweden. It is probably to G. tetrahit, or G. versicolor, also very common in Scotland, much larger plants, and rough with strong hairs, rather than to any species of lamium, that the popular belief relates of a power residing in the hairs of the D. N., particularly when the plant is dried, as in haymaking, of causing irritation in the hands of persons handling them, which, extending throughout the system, occasionally terminates in death. They do not, however, seem to possess any poisonous property. The subject is one perhaps deserving of more attention than it has received.

DEAD-RECKONING, a term in navigation, signifying the calculation of a ship's place at sea, made independently of celestial observations. The chief elements from which the reckoning is made are: The point of departure, i.e., the latitude and longitude sailed from, or last determined; the course or direction sailed in (ascertained by the compass); the rate of sailing-measured from time to time by the log (q.v.); and the time elapsed. The various principles or methods followed in arriving at the reckoning from these data are known as plain-sailing, middle-latitude sailing, etc. See SAILINGS. But the data themselves are liable to numerous uncertainties and errors, owing to currents, leeway (q.v.), fluctuations of the wind, changes in the declination of the compass, etc.; and therefore the results arrived at by the dead-reckoning have to be corrected as often as is possible by observation of the heavenly bodies. See NAVIGATION, LATITUDE, LONGI

TUDE.

DEAD SEA (anc. Lacus Asphaltites), called by the Arabs Bahr Loot, or Sea of Lot, is situated in the s.e. of Palestine, in lat. 31° 10' to 31° 47′ n., and occupies a central position between long. 35° and 36° east. It is about 46 m. long, with a breadth of 10 miles in the middle. The depth of the D. S. varies considerably: soundings in the n. have given about 220 fathoms; this depth, however, gradually lessens towards the southern extremity, where the water is shallow. Its surface, which is lower than that of any water known, is 1312 ft. below the level of the Mediterranean. The shape is that of an elongated oval, interrupted by a promontory which projects into it from the s.e. The D. S. is fed by the Jordan from the n., and by many other streams, but has no apparent outlet, its superfluous water being supposed to be entirely carried off by evaporation. Along the eastern and western borders of the D. S., there are lines of bold, and in some cases perpendicular cliffs, rising in general to an elevation of upwards of 1000 ft. on the w., and 2,000 ft. on the east. These cliffs are chiefly composed of limestone, and are destitute of vegetation save on the e. side, where there are ravines, traversed by fresh-water springs. The n. shores of the lake form an extensive and desolate muddy flat, marked by the blackened trunks and branches of trees, strewn about, and incrusted with salt, as everything is that is exposed to the spray of the Dead sea. The southern shore is low, level, and marshy, and desolate and dreary in the highest degree; the air is choking, and no living thing to be seen. On this shore is the remarkable mass of rock called Usdum (Sodom). It is a narrow rugged ridge of hill, extending 5 m. n.w., and consisting of rock-salt. Large blocks have broken off from this hill, and lie strewn in all directions along the shore, adding to its dreary and death-like aspect. To the n. of Usdum, and at no great distance, is the supposed site of the ancient Sodom. Although the hills surrounding the D. S. are principally composed of stratified rock, yet igneous rocks are also seen; there are also quantities of post-tertiary lava, pumice-stone, warm springs, sulphur, and volcanic slag, clearly proving the presence here of volcanic agencies at some period. The neighborhood of the D. S. is frequently visited by earthquakes, on which occasions it has been observed that this lake casts up to its surface large masses of asphaltum, of which substance the cups, crosses, and other ornaments that are made and sold to pilgrims at Jerusalem chiefly consist. The long-entertained belief, that the exhalations from this lake were fatal, is not founded upon fact; birds have been seen

flying over, and even sitting upon its surface. Within the thickets of tamarisk and oleander, which here and there may be seen upon its brink, the birds sing as sweetly as in more highly favored quarters. A curious plant grows on the borders of the D. S., the asclepias procera, which yields fruit called the apples of Sodom, beautiful on the outside, but bitter to the taste, and when mature, filled with fiber and dust.

The water of the D. S. is characterized by the presence of a large quantity of magnesian and soda salts. Its specific gravity ranges from 1172 to 1227 (pure water being 1000). The proportion of saline matter is so great, that whilst sea-water only contains 30 parts of salts in the 1000 parts, the water of the D. S. contains about 250, or eight times more than that of the ocean. The saltness of the D. S. has been explained in several ways; but there is no need to advert to more than one. It is a circumstance attending all lakes or collections of water without any outflow, that the water acquires an infusion of salt, its feeders constantly bringing in this material, while none can go off by evaporation. It may, moreover, be remarked that, if the D. S. was formerly at a higher level, and brought down to its present pitch by evaporation, a deposit of salt, such as we see on its banks, would be the natural consequence.

DEAD SEA FRUIT. See SODOM, APPLE OF.

DEADWOOD, county seat of Lawrence co., South Dakota, is the mercantile, financial, and mining centre of the Black Hills. It is in what is known as the Whitestone district, the most important mining section of the hills, and said to contain the largest gold mines and mills in the world. Deadwood has three banks, several churches, newspapers, an academy, public schools, city hall and court house, electric light, telephone, telegraph and water-works. It also has manufactures of lumber, iron, flour, brick and lime, beer, etc. Pop. '80, 3777; '90, 2366.

DEAF AND DUMB. Persons who are born deaf, or who lose their hearing at a very early age, are dumb also; hence the compound term deaf-and-dumb. But the primary defect is deafness; dumbness is only the consequence of it. Children ordinarily hear sounds, and then learn to imitate them; that is, they learn to repeat what they hear other persons say. It is thus that every one of us has learned to speak. But the deaf child hears nothing; cannot therefore imitate, and remains dumb.

The term "deaf and dumb" is somewhat unfortunate, as embodying and repeating the error that the affliction is twofold. It affects two organs, certainly, but only, as above described, in the way of cause and effect. The organ or hearing is wanting, but the organs of speech are present; they merely lack the means of exercise. The ear is the guide and directress of the tongue; and when she is doomed to perpetual silence, the tongue is included in the ban; though, if we could by any means give to the ear the faculty of hearing, the tongue would soon learn for itself to fulfill its proper office. To correct the error involved in this apparent misnomer, some authorities use the terms deaf-dumb and deaf-mute. The latter seems to be a customary expression in America, as in France it is sourds-muets. In the Holy Scriptures, the same original word is translated "deaf" in some places (as in St. Mark vii. 32), and “ dumb or speechless" in others. (See Matt. ix. 33, and Luke i. 22.).

In the United States, between 1851 and 1871, the number of persons under instruction increased from 1162 to 3,836, and altogether the work of education is advancing with very rapid strides. In Gt. Britain, 12,000 or 13,000 pupils have been educated since 1792-when the first public institution was opened—and at least an equal number in the United States since 1817. Add to these the pupils of the various continental institutions since 1760, when De l'Epée collected his little group of children in the environs of Paris, and Thomas Braidwood opened his school in Edinburgh, and we shall then see that the fruits of these men's labors have not been meager, but great and marvelous. Some isolated attempts had previously been made, by different men, in different countries, and at long intervals, to give instruction to one or two deaf and dumb persons, and their endeavors had been attended with various degrees of success. These several cases excited some attention at the time; but after the wonder at their novelty had subsided, they seem to have been almost forgotten, even in the countries where the experiments were made. Bede speaks of a dumb youth being taught by one of the early English bishops, known in history as St. John of Beverley, to repeat after him letters and sylla bles, and then some words and sentences. The fact was regarded as a miracle, and was classed with others alleged to have been wrought by the same hand. From this time, eight centuries elapsed before any record of an instructed deaf-mute occurs. Rodolphus Agricola, a native of Gröningen, born in 1442, mentions as within his knowledge the fact that a deaf-mute had been taught to write, and to note down his thoughts Fifty years afterwards this statement was controverted, and the alleged fact pronounced to be impossible, on the ground that no instruction could be conveyed to the mind of any one who could not hear words addressed to the ear. But the discovery which was to give the key to this long-concealed mystery was now at hand. In 1501, was born, at Pavia, Jerome Cardan (q. v.), a man of great but ill-regulated talents, who, among the numerous speculations to which his restless mind prompted him, certainly discovered the theoretical principle upon which the instruction of the deaf and dumb is founded. He says: "Writing is associated with speech, and speech with thought; but written characters and ideas may be connected together without the intervention of sounds," and

he argues that, on this principle, "the instruction of the deaf and dumb is difficult, but it is possible." All this, which to us is obvious and familiar, was a novel speculation in the 16th century. With us it is a common thing for a man to teach himself to read a language though he cannot pronounce it. There are, for instance, hundreds of persons who can read French who do not and cannot speak it. Now, it is evident in this case that written or printed words do impart ideas independently of sounds, yet this was a discovery which the world owes to Jerome Cardan; and it was for want of seeing this truth, which to us is so familiar, that the education of the deaf and dumb was never attempted, but was considered for so many centuries to be a thing impossible. It was in Spain that these principles were first put into practice by Pedro Ponce, a Benedictine monk, born at Valladolid in 1520, and again a century afterwards by another monk of the same order, Juan Paulo Bonet, who also published a work upon the subject, which was the first step towards making the education of the deaf and dumb permanent, by recording the experience of one teacher for the instruction of others. This book, published in 1620, was of service to De l'Epée 150 years later; and it contains, besides much valuable information, a manual alphabet identical in the main with that one-handed alphabet which is now in common use in the schools on the continent and in America. From this time there was a general awakening of the attention of intellectual men, not only to the importance of the subject, but to the practicability of instructing the deafmute. One of Bonet's pupils was seen by Charles I., when prince of Wales; and the case is described by sir Kenelm Digby, who was in attendance upon the prince, on his memorable matrimonial journey into Spain. When the art died away in that country, it was taken up by Englishmen, and began forthwith to assume an entirely new aspect. Dr. John Bulwer published, in 1648, his Philocophus, or the Deafe and Dumbe Man's Friend; Dr. William Holder published his Elements of Speech, with an Appendix concerning Persons Deaf and Dumb, in 1669; and Dr. John Wallis, Savilian professor of mathematics in the university of Oxford, both taught the deaf and dumb with great success, and wrote copiously upon the subject. In 1662, one of the most proficient of his pupils was exhibited before the royal society, and in the presence of the king. The Philosophical Transactions of 1670 contain a description of his mode of instruction, which was destined to bear ample fruits long after his death.

Before the close of the 17th c., many works of considerable merit appeared, the chief of which are the Surdus Loquens (the Speaking Deaf Man) of John Conrad Amman, a physician of Haarlem; and the Didascolocophus, or Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor, of George Dalgarno. This treatise, published in 1680, and reprinted some years ago by the Maitland Club, is eminently sound and practical, which is the more remarkable, as the author speaks of it as being, for aught he knows, the first that had been written on the subject. He is the first English writer who gives a manual alphabet. The one described by him, and of which he was the inventor, is, most probably, the one from which our present two-handed alphabet is derived. Dalgarno was by birth a Scotchman, but was long resident at Oxford. He died in 1687, and Dr. Wallis in 1703. From that time until 1760, nothing more was done in this country-though the subject was beginning to excite some attention in France-to resume the work which had been thus far prosecuted and helped on by the writings and labors of these eminent men. In 1760, when the abbé De l'Epée was opening his little school in Paris, the first school in the British dominions was also established in Edinburgh, by Thomas Braidwood. He commenced with one pupil, the son of a merchant in Leith, who had strongly urged him to carry into effect the plan of instruction followed by Dr. Wallis, and described in the Philosophical Transactions 90 years before. This school, the parent and model of the earlier British institutions, was visited and spoken of by many of the influential men of that day, and its history and associations are imperishable. Its local name of Dumbiedikes suggested to sir Walter Scott a designation for one of his most popular characters in the Heart of Midlothian. A visit paid to it in 1773, by Dr. Johnson and his biographer Boswell, supplies one of the most suggestive and characteristic passages in the Journey to the Western Islands. In the year 1783, Mr. Braidwood removed to Hackney, near London, and the presence of his establishment so near to the metropolis undoubtedly led to the foundation of the London Asylum in 1792. Dr. Watson, its first principal, was a nephew, and had been an assistant, of Mr. Braidwood; and he states that, some 10 or 15 years previously, the necessity for the establishment of a public institution had been plainly seen, and some few but insufficient steps taken towards the accomplishment of such a design. From its foundation in 1792 until 1829, it was directed with great ability by Dr. Joseph Watson, in whose work on the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb this statement is given. On his decease, he was suceeeded by his son, Mr. Thomas James Watson, of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and he again was followed in 1857 by his eldest son, the Rev. James H. Watson, of Pembroke college, Cambridge.

The mental condition of the deaf and dumb is so peculiar-so entirely unlike that of any other branch of the human family-that it is extremely difficult, without very close thought, to obtain an accurate conception of it. While almost every one will readily admit that there is a wide difference between a deaf and a hearing child, very few, who have not had their attention painfully drawn to the subject, possess any adequate notion of the difference, or could tell wherein it consists. Sometimes the deaf

are compared with the blind, though there exists no proper ground of comparison between them. Except that the blind are more dependent than the deaf and dumb, the relative disadvantages of the two classes do not admit of a moment's comparison. The blind man can be talked with and read to, and is thus placed in direct intercourse with the world around him: domestic converse, literary pleasures, political excitement, intellectual research, are all within his reach. The person born deaf is utterly excluded from every one of them. The two afflictions are so essentially dissimilar, that they can only be considered and spoken of together by way of contrast. Each of them affects both the physical and the mental constitution; but blindness, which is a grievous bodily affliction, falls but lightly on the mind; while the effect of deafness is the extreme reverse of this-it touches only one bodily organ, and that not visibly, but the calamity which befalls the mind is one of the most desperate in "the catalogue of human woes." The deprivation under which the born-deaf labor is not merely, or so much, the exclusion of sound, as it is the complete exclusion of all that information and instruction which are conveyed to our minds, and all the ideas which are suggested to them, by means of sound. The deaf know almost nothing, because they hear nothing. We, who do hear, acquire knowledge through the medium of language-through the sounds we hear, and the words we read-ever hour. But as regards the deaf and dumb, speech tells them nothing, because they cannot hear; and books teach them nothing, because they cannot read; so that their original condition is far worse than that of persons who can neither read nor write" (one of our most common expressions for extreme ignorance); it is that of persons who can neither read, nor write, nor hear, nor speak; who cannot ask you for information when they want it, and could not understand you, if you wished to give it to them. Your difficulty is to understand their difficulty; and the difficulty which first meets the teacher is, how to simplify and dilute his instructions down to their capacity for receiving them.

A class thus cut off from all communication through the ear, can only be addressed through the eye; and the means employed in the instruction of the deaf and dumb are -1. The visible language of pictures, and of signs and gestures; 2. The finger-alphabet (or dactylology), and writing, which make them acquainted with our own written language; and in some cases, 3. Articulation, and reading on the lips, which introduce them to the use of spoken language. The education of the deaf and dumb must be twofold-you must awaken and inform their minds by giving them ideas and knowledge, and you must cultivate them by means of language. The use of signs will give them a knowledge of things; but to this must be added a knowledge of words. They are there. fore taught, from the first, that words convey the same ideas to our minds which pictures and signs do to theirs; they are therefore required to change signs for words until the written or printed character is as readily understood as the picture or the sign. This, of course, is a long process, as it has to be repeated with every word. Names of visible objects (nouns), of visible qualities (adjectives), and of visible actions (verbs), are gradually taught, and are readily acquired; but the syntax of language, abstract and metaphorical terms, a copious diction, idiomatic phraseology, the nice distinctions between words called synonymous, and those which are identical in form, but of different signification-these are far more difficult of attainment; they can only be mastered through indomitable perseverance and application on the part of the pupil, in addition to the utmost skill and ingenuity of the teacher. The wonder, therefore, surely is, seeing the point of starting, that this degree of advancement is ever reached at all."

Yet it has been set forth by otherwise respectable authority, that the deaf and dumb are a "gifted race;" that they are remarkable for their promptitude in defining abstract terms;" and those who ought to have known better, have strengthened this delusion, by putting forth, as the bona fide answers of deaf-mutes, those brilliant aphorisms and definitions of Massieu and Clerc, which are so often quoted at public meetings, by eloquent speakers who know nothing of the subject. It is very well known to those who are acquainted with the subject, that the so-called definitions of Hope, Gratitude, Time, Eternity, etc., were not Massieu's at all, but those of his master, the abbé Sicard. The influence of these fallacies has been most mischievous; they raise expectation to an unreasonable height, for it is thought that what was done by "the celebrated pupil of the abbé Sicard," may be done every day: and disappointment is the inevitable consequence. The honest, laborious teacher who cannot produce these marvelous results, and will not stoop to deception, has often to labor on without that appreciation and encouragement which are so eminently his due; the cause of deaf-mute instruction suffers, and a young institution is sometimes crippled by the failure of support, which was first given from one impulse, and is now withdrawn from another-not a whit more unreasonable than the first, but very unfortunate in its consequences.

The course of instruction is very much the same in all the public schools of Gt. Britain, but a vigorous effort is now being made, by the advocates of what is called the "German system," to teach by oral instruction only. If they can produce, on an extensive scale, the results which have been obtained in some special and exceptional cases, they will assuredly deserve all the success they hope for, and merit the highest commendation. But it will not be sufficient merely to show that their system is superior to the one in present use, unless they can also show that it can be as extensively applied. The dispensers of the funds of our institutions are bound to uphold that

Deaf.

system which will confer the largest practicable amount of benefit upon the largest possible number of persons. To make a few brilliant scholars, and to produce a number of ready and intelligible speakers, will certainly be a very creditable achievement; but that will not justify any claim to supersede the humbler but more useful system under which so many thousands of our deaf-mute fellow-citizens have been rendered competent for the duties of life, in the workshop, in their families, and in society, and to "walk in the house of God as friends."

The manual alphabet in common use in the schools of Gt. Britain is the two-handed one, though the other is used in some of the Irish institutions, and is regarded with favor by a few of the English teachers. Th arguments in its favor, like those for the decimal currency, may probably be admitted; it would be better if we had it. But the rival system has got possession, and is in familiar use, and persons are apt to think that the inconveniences of making the change would outweigh the advantages to be expected from it. The institutions in Great Britain are supported by annual subscriptions, donations, and legacies, and by the payments of pupils for their board. The larger benefactions are invested, where the annual income from ordinary sources I will admit of it. Committees, chosen from the body of subscribers, direct the affairs of these institutions, the executive officers being the headmaster and the secretary; but in some cases the sole charge is intrusted to the principal. The gentlemen who fill this office have devoted their whole lives to the work; some of them have also done good service by their writings upon the subject. The census report, 1871, specially mentions the works of Messrs. Baker of Doncaster, Scott of Exeter, and Buxton of Liverpool, each of whom has helped to make it better known and better understood than it could possibly be when it was treated by men with no practical knowledge, as a merely literary topic, or a subject of philosophical curiosity. Justice also requires the mention here of the valuable writings of the late Dr. H. P. Peet, of New York, and other American instructors of the deaf and dumb. The institutions in the western world are munificently supported by grants from the states, and appear to be ac rairably managed. The staff of teachers is numerous, able, and efficient, and a high degree of success may fairly be expected where the work is carried on under advantages which are unknown in the schools of Great Britain. At Washington, a college has