The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1901-06-20
FIGURE LIKE LIGHTNING
REMARKABLE FEATS THAT PUZZLE
MATHEMATIcIANs.
english Laborcr From Age of Seven was
Marvel, and American hoy whose
Powers In the Same Direction Were
Equally Incomprehensibic.

q Marvel, and American Hoy whose
Powers In the Same Direction Were
Equally Incomprehensibic.
Some sceptical persons who wit.
messed lnaudPs extraordinary perform
ances in mental arithmetic at the Lon
don Hippodrome a short times ago. ex-
pressed an uneasy feeling that they
might probably have been duped after
all; that the wonderful sums In addi-
tion, subtraction, division and extrac-
tion of root which were proposed to
him from the audience, and which he
seemed to perform with such ease aud
expedition, to say nothing of his re-
peating without error the long rows of
figures written on blackboard behind
his back. might have been all carefully
arranged and learned beforehand.
Their sceptlclsm. however, was en-
tirely groundless. Inaudi first gave
evidence of his curious aptitude for
mentally manipulating figures when
he was six years old. AT the age of
seven he could multiply with five
figures correctly And for some years
after this he relieved the tedium of
his lonely life as a Pledmontese shep-
herd boy by sedulously cultlvating this
extraordinary faculty. Ana he is by
no means the only instance ON record
of boy of little or no education being
able to do sums which might puzzle
senior wrangler, and whose lnexplica-
BILE powers have certainly afforded
further puzzle to the professional psy-
chologist.
A farm laborer from Derbyshire,
named Jebediah Buxton, who was ex-
amined before the Royal Society in
1854, was possessed of very similar
power. Although his grandfather was
vicar and his father schoolmaster of
the parish in which he was born, yet
Jedediah. either from natural inca
pacity or from preoccupation with his
arlthmetical pursuits, never even ac-
qulred the rudlments of learning,
either could not or would not so much
as learn to write, and was content to
work as farm laborer to the end OF
his days. But ut a very early age he
appears to have had an intuitive per-
ceptlon OF the relative proportions of
numbers, and to this subject he de.
voted the whole of his attention. His
method was so much his own that he
seems to have been quite unacquainted
with the common rules. On one occa-
sion, having been required to multiply
456 by 37S. and having done 1t as
quickly as one of his examiners could
do 1t in the ordinary way. he was
asked to work the sum audibly. in or
der that his method might be discOv-
cred. 1t then appeared, curiously
enough, that he went to work in very
roundabout way. First he multiplied
the 450 by 5, which produced 22S0;
this he again multiplied by 20, and
found the product to be 45,600 OF
course he might much more readily
have achieved this result by simply
adding two nsughts to the multipla
cand. This he evidently did not
know. However, he next went on to
multiply the number he had now ar
rived at by 3. which gave him the sum
of ths muItiplaeant multiplied by 300,
and 1t then remained fer him to multi
ply 1t by the remaining 7S. This he
effected by the awkward process of
multiplying by 15 the 2280. which was
the product obtained by his first multi
plication of 456 by 5. The product thus
obtained he then added to the 13G,S0o,
which was the sum of 456 multiplied
by 800, This produced III 900. as the
sum OF 456 multiplied by 375. 1t re-
mained for him, therefore, to multiply
the original number again by 8 and
add the sum OF it to III 900, and by
this certainly rather cumbrous process
he found the product Of 45G multiplied
by 37S to be 172F86S.
Jcdediah had no more general knowl-
edge than any average peasant boy of
ten years of age, and showed no men,
ory for anything but figures. He was
sometimes asked when he returned
from church if he could repeat the text
or any part of the sermon, but he
could never remember n single SEN
tence. In one matter only. excepting
his figures, did he ever show the slight
est interest. but his desire to sec the
King and the royal family was strong
enough TO induce him. when forty
seven years of ago, to walk to London
for that purpose. He was entertained
by the editor of the Gentleman's Mag
aZine at ST. Johns Gate, and exhib-
tied to the Royal Society, the mem.
bers of which he afterward referred
to as "the yolk OF Siety Court" Dur
ing his stay in London he was taken TO
Drury Lane Theatre TO see Richard
Ill.," but neither the novelty nor the
splendor OF the show, nor the exhibi-
tion of passion. made any visible i'm
preston on him, and he occupied him
self in counting the number OF words
which Garricl uttered during the per-
formance. The Gentlemans Magazine
for June. 1754, informed the public
that Jedediah had returned TO the
place of his birth without regretting
anything which he had left behind him
in London, cheersully returning to his
customary work, and quite convinced
that slice of rusty bacon afforded
more delicious repast than anything
to be obtained in the great city.
Another untaught arithmetieai &C.
MUS, zerah Colburn, whose abnormal
development raises an interesting
problem, was the son OF an American
farmer. He wars brought to London
by his father in 1912. when eight years