The Diamond Puzzle.
IN how many different ways may the word DIAMOND be read in the
arrangement shown? You may start wherever you like at a D and go up or
down, backwards or forwards, in and out, in any direction you like, so
long ...
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The Parish Council Election.
Here is an easy problem for the novice. At the last election of the
parish council of Tittlebury-in-the-Marsh there were twenty-three
candidates for nine seats. Each voter was qualified to vote for nine of
thes...
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Wilson's Poser.
"Speaking of perplexities--" said Mr. Wilson, throwing down a magazine
on the table in the commercial room of the Railway Hotel.
"Who was speaking of perplexities?" inquired Mr. Stubbs.
"Well, then, reading abo...
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The Domino Frame Puzzle.
It will be seen in the illustration that the full set of twenty-eight
dominoes is arranged in the form of a square frame, with 6 against 6, 2
against 2, blank against blank, and so on, as in the game. It will b...
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The Six Pawns.
In how many different ways may I place six pawns on the chessboard so
that there shall be an even number of unoccupied squares in every row
and every column? We are not here considering the diagonals at all, an...
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Ovid's Game
Having examined "Noughts and Crosses," we will now consider an extension of the game that is distinctly mentioned in the works of Ovid. It is, in fact, the parent of "Nine Men's Morris," referred to by Sh...
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The Broken Coins.
A man had three coins--a sovereign, a shilling, and a penny--and he
found that exactly the same fraction of each coin had been broken away.
Now, assuming that the original intrinsic value of these coins was the...
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The Tapiser's Puzzle
Then came forward the Tapiser, who was, of course, a maker of tapestry, and must not be confounded with a tap...
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The Miners' Holiday.
Seven coal-miners took a holiday at the seaside during a big strike. Six
of the party spent exactly half a sovereign each, but Bill Harris was
more extravagant. Bill spent three shillings more than the average ...
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The Pebble Game.
Here is an interesting little puzzle game that I used to play with an
acquaintance on the beach at Slocomb-on-Sea. Two players place an odd
number of pebbles, we will say fifteen, between them. Then each takes ...
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The Mandarin's "t" Puzzle.
Before Mr. Beauchamp Cholmondely Marjoribanks set out on his tour in the
Far East, he prided himself on his knowledge of magic squares, a subject
that he had made his special hobby; but he soon discovered that ...
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The Haberdasher's Puzzle
Many attempts were made to induce the Haberdasher, who was of the party, to propound a puzzle of some kind, b...
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The Banner Puzzle.
A Lady had a square piece of bunting with two lions on it, of which the
illustration is an exactly reproduced reduction. She wished to cut the
stuff into pieces that would fit together and form two square banne...
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The Wapshaw's Wharf Mystery.
There was a great commotion in Lower Thames Street on the morning of
January 12, 1887. When the early members of the staff arrived at
Wapshaw's Wharf they found that the safe had been broken open, a
considerabl...
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The Three Teacups
One young lady—of whom our fair historian records with delightful inconsequence: "This Miss Charit...
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The Four Knights' Tours.
I will repeat that if a chessboard be cut into four equal parts, as
indicated by the dark lines in the illustration, it is not possible to
perform a knight's tour, either re-entrant or not, on one of the parts....
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Tasting The Plum Puddings
"Everybody, as I suppose, knows well that the number of different Christmas plum puddings that you taste...
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The Horse-race Puzzle.
There are no morals in puzzles. When we are solving the old puzzle of
the captain who, having to throw half his crew overboard in a storm,
arranged to draw lots, but so placed the men that only the Turks were
s...
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Defective Observation.
Our observation of little things is frequently defective, and our
memories very liable to lapse. A certain judge recently remarked in a
case that he had no recollection whatever of putting the wedding-ring on
h...
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What Was The Time?
"I say, Rackbrane, what is the time?" an acquaintance asked our friend
the professor the other day. The answer was certainly curious.
"If you add one quarter of the time from noon till now to half the time
from...
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Informational
