The Placer herald., 1873-02-15

ihtit Is Opiy OHe CAST Ill WHICH you Cdl
be at fault, aud that is in the event of amul
tiple Of 8 being returned to you as product
OF course, then, you will know that either a
or an 0 must have been struck out. Had
The been struck out in the above instance,
the result would have been SO; had it been
the 0 the product would have been 45. Both
being multiples of 8, it would be impossible
to tell with certainty whether the missing
figure WIS or 0, but good guess may
generally be formed, because if the figures
appear suspiciously low in proportion to the
time taken to tot up the sum, you may
speculate that your product has most likely
sustained the loss of the highest number.
There is a clever Persian story about Mo-
hammed Ali and the cames, and though it
will be familiar to many readers, they will
scarcel y be sorry to be reminded of it. A
Persian died, leaving seventeen camels to be
divided among his three sons in the following
proportions: the eldest to have half, the
second a third, and the youngest ninth.
OF course pamels can't be divided into frac-
lions, so, in despair, the brothers submitted
their difficulty TO Mohammed Ali. "Noth-
ing easier !" said the wise Ali; "lll lend you
another camel to make eighteen, and now
divide them yourselves" The consequence
was, each brother got from one-eighih to
one-half of a camel more than he was ent-
tied to, and Ali received his camel back
again; the eldest brother getting nine camels
the second six and the third two.
Johann August Musaus, one of the most
popular German story writers of the last cen
t,,rx in Of | |, ~ Ia L.,
of Bohemia put forth the following problem
to her three lovers, offering her hand and
throne as prize for correct solution: 81
have here in my basket" said the lady Ii
bussa, "a gift of plums for each of you,
picked from my garden, One of you shall
have half and one more, the second shall
again have half and one more, and the third
shall again have half and three more This
will empty my basket. Now tell me how
many plums are in it.
The first knight made random guess at
three score.
"No," replied the lady. "But if there
were as many more, half as many more, and
a third as many more as there are now in
the basket, with five more added to that,
tn number would by so much exceed three
score as it now fall short of it.
aerta ae sTse"4 kRssh Hshdiy TS'' on "
"Not 50, said this royal ready reckoner.
''But if there were a third as many more,
half as many more, and a sixth as many
more as there are now, there would be in my
basket as many more than forty five as there
now under that number"
Prince Waldomir then decided the number
of plums to be thirty; and by so doing Oh
tanned this valuable househeeper for his wife.
The lady Libussa thereupon counted him out
fifteen plums and one more, when there re-
manned fourteen. To the second knight she
gave seven and one more, and six remained
To the first knight she gave half of these
and three more, and the basket was empty.
The discarded lovers went off with their
heads exceedingly giddy, and their mouths
full of plums.
Double Position, or the Rule of False, by
which problems Of this sort are worked,
ought to demolish the commonplace about
two wrongs not making right Two wrongs
do make a right, Ggure atiye'y speaking, at
all events. Starting with two wiIliully
wrong numbers, you work each out to its
natural conclusion. Then, taking the sum
of your iniquties as compared with the false
hoods with which you started, you have only
to multiply them crosswise to get terms
which will bring you straight to the truth.
TO be more p,ecse, after the cross-multipli-
cation, if the errors are alke-tbat is, both
greater or both less than The number you
want-their difference for divisor, and the
difference of their products for a dividend.
The quotient will be the answer. This is
good arithmetic, and, for those who can re-
ceive it, not bad philosophy. There is an
enormous self-righting power about error,
and if we could only manage the cross null
tiplication properly, we might get some sur
prising results
The number 81 has this strange peculiar
ty: multiply by three or any multiple of
three up to 27 itgives three figures all ike.
Thus three times 81 are Ill. Twice three
times (6 times) 81 will be 222; three times
three times 60 times) 81 gives three threes {;
four times three times az times) 81, three
fours, and so on.
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