HERE IS ONE OF those curious and instructive problems which we are apt to pick up at any time during a morning's walk, and which is apt to furnish food for reflection for the rest of the day. Recently, while enjoying a walk with a friend in the country we met his son, who, while driving a speedy pony, went around a sharp turn at a gait which threatened an upset to the pony cart, as well as to his father's nerves. In the discussion which occurred later on, after we had returned home, there appeared to be such a diversion of opinion between father and son regarding the turning qualities of that pony cart, to say nothing about the danger of upsetting through going so fast, that we did some little experimenting in a practical way, during the course of which we developed the following problem:
The sketch will aid, not only to explain the nature of the puzzle, but will afford such of our young puzzlists as depend on their judgment and common sense to make a pretty good guess without resorting to figures or the rules for computing concentric circles.
In turning the pony cart around within a ring of a certain diameter, which might be said to be reasonably safe, it was found that the outer wheels made two turns to the inner ones' one; the wheels were fixed at the statutory distance of five feet apart on the axle tree. The problem is to guess the circumference of the track described by the outer wheels in making the turn.
For an accidental puzzle, picked up in the road, as it were, and pertaining to matters with which it is assumed that we are all tolerably familiar, it is a pretty one. Well worth the attention of our experts.
The circumference of the track described by the outer wheels of the cart in making the turn may be solved mentally as follows:
For the outer wheel to go twice as fast as the inner, the circumference of the outer circle must be twice that of the inner. As five feet is equal to half the radius of the outer circle, ten feet must be the radius and twenty feet the diameter of the outer circle. 3.1416 times twenty feet gives us 62,832 feet as the circumference of the circle described by the outer wheel.
2. Missing-Word Puzzle.
Here is an odd little criss-cross puzzle wherein you are to discover a word, which when placed in the vacant space, so as to be read twice, will make the sentence complete, beginning at THE and ending with ESCAPED.
That missing word is “brigand,” so the sentence reads: The brigand placed the loot in his brig and escaped.
3.
Why does the Russian nation resemble the sea? Because her nobles are tremendous swells, and her people serfs.
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