DURATION OF HUMAN LIFE. 70'3 



Jura, who is said to have died in the reign of 

 Charles I. at the age of 180, it is tolerably well 

 established, that during the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries, Francis Conciest of Yorkshire, 

 lived to the age of 150, Thomas Parr of Shrop- 

 shire, to 152, and Henry Jenkins to 169 : that 

 in Scotland, Mr. Lawrence died at the age of 140, 

 Margaret Patton at 138, and John Mount at 

 136: that in Ireland, Colonel Winslow died at 

 the age of 146, the Countess of Desmond at 140, 

 and a very large number in all parts of the 

 United Kingdom, at 120 and upwards. 



According to Mr. Finlayson, between 1813 and 

 1830, 290,309 individuals died at the age of 80 

 and upwards, out of 3,938,496, buried in England 

 and Wales, making 73 per 1000 ; whereas ac- 

 cording to the tables of mortality in Prussia, the 

 number of deaths from 1820 to 1834, at the age 

 of 81 and upwards, was 207,599, out of 5,457,209, 

 making the ratio only 38*7 per 1000. (Ameri- 

 can Almanack for 1839.) 



But if we are to credit the census taken in 

 1830, the number of centenarians in a white po- 

 pulation of 10,845,729 in the United States, was 

 531, or one for every 20,425, and larger than the 

 ratio in England, or perhaps any other part of 

 the world excepting Scotland. What is still more 

 remarkable, the number of slaves who had ar- 

 rived at the age of 100 and upwards, was 1379 in 

 a population of 2,010,436, or in the ratio of one 



