Martinsburg statesman. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1869-1906, 1905-12-01
AsToNlsHgD THE KING.
Marvellous Fests OF Mental Calcutta.
tors Recalled.


by the mar elously quick fashion in
which from a scanty supply of facts
he calculated the number of minutes
which he had lived through since he
was born, the amount of money lie
bad in his pocket. and so forth
Each of these caleulators is without
doubt a genius OF his kind who APP
pears only once In a generation. or
not so often as that
One of the most remarkable OF them
all was Jedediah Buxton, who -four
ished in the eighteenth century, and
with whom reckoning was positively
disease. for he could not 20 to
church without calculating exactly
how many words were uttered by
each performer. He would stride over
a field two or three times in different
directions. and then reckon mentally
how many square inches OF land there
were in it,
With the object Of testing him.
some skeptics asked him how many
eubical eighths of an inch there are
in quadrangular mass measuring
23l45IS 9 yards long, 5.642.7 1872 yards
wide. and 54,965 yards thick. and af-
ter very brief mental calculation he
gave an accurate answer At last he
made himself, as he said, drunk with
reckoning imposing upon himself
the task of discovering how many
grains of eight different kinds OF corn
and pulse there we're In zoe. 900, 900 900
cubic miles, and how many hairs one
inch long, For the solution of this
problem he first Of all actually count
ed how many grains of each kind
there were in an inch cube and how
many hairs OF the specified inch
length, and then he made the re-
mander of the calculation, as usual.
mentally
Mr.. George Parker Bidder. who
about half century ago was an emin-
ent civil engineer, had wonderful
reputation for his system OF mental
calculation. When he was little boy
only 6 years old he used to amuse
himself by counting up to hundred.
then to thousand. and next to
million. and by this means he uncon-
sciously trained himself to contem-
plate the relations OF high numbers.
Then he would build up marbles.
shot and peas into pyramids and be
able to tell exactly, without count
ing, how many went to the construc-
ton of each.
When he went to school he did all
his mathematical sums mentally.
without any slate reckoning. in one
tenth the time that the other boys oe-
cupied; and then, when at last he
went out into the professional world
and became famous as an engineer,
1t was his business sometimes to APP
pear before parliamentary committees
that were sitting on contested rail-
way bills, and on such occasions he
would prove by mental calculation
that the figures of counsel were
wrong within a few seconds of their
utterance
In nearly every case these figure
wizards have shown their remarkable
talents as little children, and without
any special advantages in the way OF
parentage or training-usually the re-
verse. Thus. in 1899. little Sicilian
named Vito Mangiamele, II years Of
age, son of a shepherd, astonished the
members of the Academy of Sciences
at Paris, before whom he appeared.
by the wonderful speed and accuracy
of his mental reckonings. In half
minute he calculated for them the
cube root of 1864 and in three
minutes he extracted the tenth root of
2S2, 475,249.
Then he was asked this question:
What number has the following pro-
portions, that II dts cube is added To Ave
times its square. and then AZ times
the number and the number 40 be
subtracted from the result. the re-
mainder is equal to or zero?" The
question was repeated to him a second
time SO that he might properly I'M
derstand 1t, but while his interrogator
was repeating the last word the boy
replied. THE number is g.
Nearly 100 years ago also a young
famciitdu wy <cIO SOlDulu
created sensation in London He
was only years old at the time and
did not know a single one of the Or
binary rules of simple arithemetic.
Yet in few seconds he answered cor
rectly such questions as these: What
is the square root of LOG. 929? What is
the cube root Of 26s, 336.125? How
many seconds are there in As years?
When is raised to the sixteenth pow
er what is the result?" He always
gave the correct answers, but he could
never explain how he came by them.
One time the Duke of Gloucester ex-
amined him and asked him to multi
ply 21.734 by 543. and when he gave
him the correct answer Immediately
the duke asked how he did it. The
boy then said that instead of multiply
ing the original figures which the
duke had given him he multiplied
5000 by 1S1. which came to the same
thing. But why he had made the
change In the original figures himself