Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1888-11-08
WONDERS OF THE eoRoBAN.
The Japanese System of Ciphering-Rapid
Methods of Counting.

The Japanese System of Ciphering-Rapid
Methods of Counting.
Suppose a few articles had been purchased,
and the paltry sum total is only worthy
record in the first example of a schoolboy's
mental arithmetic The buyer sums them
instantly in his mind, but the tradesman
deigns not to receive the amount or to per-
pick himself with any mathematical labor,
however trifling. He seizes his soroban,
gives it n tilt and n rafting sweep of the
hand makes few clicks and announces the
price. There is frequently small difference
in amount, arising from imperfect compre-
hension of the infinitessmal coins, which
play more prominent part in retail trade
here than do the farthings in the English
penny shops. But the sOrOban may be
trusted. 1t does not lie any more than the
multiplication table may. A longer &C
quaintance transforms the first distrust into
wondering admiration. In competition of
simple addition an ordinary tradesman in
Japan would carry Off the palm from any
mathematician of the west.
The arithmetical process on a soroban diff
fers so completely from our cipher that only
study and practice will make it understood
IOu hhON VIC lilsti n SiIdllD" ItC-
tangular box, with a bar of wood, making
an unequal division lengthwise Wires-gen-
orally seventeen in number, but that is not
essential-upon which are strung wood balls,
cross the short diameter of the box, running
through the wood bar. In the largest divis-
ion there are five balls on each wire, and in
the smaller only one.
Forget all the arithmetic you have learned,
and begin again with an eastern soul There
will be no fractions to alarm you--bere will
be only decimals The middle wire will rep
resent units, and the rods on either hand
have place value corresponding to our sys-
tenn of enumeration To the left are the tens,
hundreds and thousands, to the right the
tenths, hundredths, and so on. Away from
the dividing ball the balls have no signifca-
ton or value; pushed to it, they are units in
the larger compartment and fives of the
same denomination in the small one. This
gives almost a double system of counting. 1t
is by fives as well as by tens.
Suppose the first sum adjusted on the soro-
ban by pushing up balls for every digit
The next one to be added is incorporated
with it in the very act of writing-if that
word may stand for the second act of ad-
justment. Here comes the beginning of
the difference The largest numbers are
added first and the smallest last. 1t is like
| everything else done in the East, wrong end
| first. All the process of carry ten," which
we master with infinite trouble in childhood,
| disappears in the magical movements Of
| those intermediary fives. Mathematics is
| not regarded with awe in this country, nor is
| it made point of measure between male and
| female intellect. The betto carries his soro.
ban, and reekous upon it the meals of his
| horses. Every kitchen is furnished with it.
although spoons and pans may be minus
! The nurse clicks its balls when meditatine
T! tho extravaganza of an added length to her
| next gown, and the fearless baby plays with
| it for rattle
II there is anything which could reconcile
me to being native of the far east, it /,
being born to use the soroban. The sorobar
isthe key to a system of arithmetic so widel,
different from ours it deserves more respec
than scholars generally accord to it. On it
wires not only multiplication and division
are ratified over, but the longer processes o
square root and cube root click out the exac
results with less probability of errors tina,
when done by ciphering. The japanese ma.
lay aside his dress and his domestic customs
his jinrikshas, and even his alphabet but hi
soroban neveri-Baltimore American.