Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1891-01-29

When the late Stale Senator 4. J.
Smith. Ct Hancock county, w. Va.
passed away, bis family looked at his
watch to see the time. The hands
pointed TO 1902. When 8. @. Smith,
son Of the late Senator. begau house.
keeping in Wheeling. bic father gave
him family clock which he had al !.
ways attended to himself. After the
funeral Mr.. Smith returned to Wheel.
ing. As soon az he saw the clock
Mr.. Smith turned TO his mother and
sister and asked them il anything in
the room attracted their attention.
"Ths clock" said the sister. and the
mother nodded assent. The clock had
stopped at l2.02.
RACING SUGGESTIONS.
The late August Belmont once told
one Of his friends on the Monmouth
race track that his horses would not
win because Q flock of blackbirds had
crossed his path that morning.
81 saw the blsckbirds in the field"
he related, "and I said to myself. III
they Fly across I shall lose So !
walked my team carefully-csrsfully.
But mol Just az / came opposite the
birds few up in front Of me. wheeled
about and crossed me again. I shall
rot 20 to the stables. ] have sent
for my trainer to tell him it is Of no
use trying to win to-day"
At another time he was in radiant
spirits because little bird had flown
into his bathroom and allowed itself
TO be fed.
81 shall have good luck" be sx.
claimed. swat ard you shall see. !"
That day he won three principal
races. Indeed, curious phase Of his
superstitions was that they generally
turned out to be correct. When he
felt that he was going to lose he did
lose; when he imagined he was going
TO win he did win.
This may be explained by coinci.
dence, or BY the fact that his trainer
and jockey were shrewd enough 70
humor his whims. knowing that be
would rather justify his superstition
than capture q race. But, whatever
the explanation. the fact that such q
man should be subject to such capri.
ces is strange.
soUARING THE CIRCLE.
Although the opinion is widely
current in the unprofessional world
that professional mathematicians are
still busted with the solution Of the
problem, this is BY no means the case,
says Herman Schubert. On the con.
trary. for some 200 years. the en-
dsavors of many considerable maths.
msticians have been solely directed
towards demonstrating with exaetnsss
that the problem 10 unsolvabls. Ills,
as a rule-and naturally-more diff.
cult to prove that something 10 inn
possible than to prove that it 10 pos.
sibls. And thus it has happened that
up to within few years ago. despite
| the employ cement of the most varied
and the most comprehensive methods
Of modern mathematics. no one sue.
ceeded in supplying the wishsd.for
demonstration of the problems i'm.
possibility. At last Prof. Linds-
mann, of Konigsberg. in June, 1882,
succeeded in furnishing . demenstra-
tion-and the first demonstration
that it 10 impossible by the exclusive
employment of ruler and cOmpasses
to construct q square that 10 maths.
matically exactly equal in area to .
given circle. The demonstration, nat.
urally. was not effected with the help
of the old elementary methods; for If
it were. it would surely have been
accomplished centuries ago; but meth
DDS were requisite that were FIRST
furnished by the theory of definite
integals and departments of higher
algebra developed in the last decades;
in other words. it required the direct
and indirect preparatory labor Of
many centuries to make finally pos.
sibls demonstration of the insolva.
bility Of this historic problem. Of
course, this demonstration will have
no more effect than the resolution of
the Paris Academy al 1772. in causing
the fecund race of circle squarsrs to
vanish from the face of the earth.
In the future. as in the past, there
will bs people who know nothing and
will not want to know anything of
this demonstration, and who believe
that they cannot help but succeed in
q matter in which others have failed.
EXACT MEASUREMENT OF TINE.
A ''solar day" il measured BY the
rotation of the earth upon its axis.
and is Of different lengths, owing to