Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
1.1.
b
.
Average accessibility of rail transport in the cantons of France, 1860-1920.
Sources:
Population figures from the
Bulletin des lois de la République française
(1 8 8 7):
204-48; rail lines and railway stations digitized from
Carte des chemins de fer français,
SNCF, 1944, Ge BB 368, Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
parish scores is calculated for each of 633 registration districts; then the
district means for each date are classified by different levels of district
population density. Figure 1.1 shows the patern of increasing accessibil-
ity over the decades: except in the least populated districts, proximity
to a railway station continued to increase until the turn of the twenti-
eth century, especially for communities of modest population density
(twenty-five to one hundred persons per square kilometer). Interest-
ingly, Jefferies took this history so much for granted that he ignored it
in his writings.
In Jefferies's assessment of the British system, a major deficiency
was the long distance between the farmer's field and the railway station;
Jefferies cited a journey of up to ten miles as not uncommon but regret-
tably inconvenient and outdated. Among the farmers he consulted, there
were no doubt a goodly number who complained of this inconvenience.
