The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1906-01-08
MARVEISAT FIGURES
LIGHTNING CALCULATIONS WHO WERE
GIFTED BY NATURE.
Two Boys whose Peculiar Talents
Attracted General Attention--sOme
OF the Dimc1It Tests Through Which
They Passed SuccessfuIIy.

I 1906 at Morton Hampstead. In Devon
shire, where his father carried on
! small business as a stonemason. At the
] early age Of four lie showed a most ex.
| traordinary ability for calculation,
| which with slight assistance from an
1 elder brother assumed quite phenom-
| email proportions. His peculiar talents
soon attracted general attention, and
| his father found il much more prof
J table employment 10 carry bis son
/ about the country and exhibit him as
! the calculating phenomenon" Than fol
! lowing his trade. In this way young
Bidder visited many parts of England,
astonishing the different people who
| came 10 question him by the wonder
| full rapidlty with which he was able
! 10 answer, without external aid of any
description, the most difficult ques.
lions. or these the following are Il few
OF the most extraordinary examples:
If Il flea spring two feet and three
inches in every hop, how many hops
must ii take 10 so around The world,
the circumference being 25,020 miles
and how long would II be performing
the journey, allowing it to take sixty
hops every minute without inermis-
sion? Answer, 5S.7l3GO0 hops and |
year. 3lf days Is hours and 20 min.
liteS.
The following question was solved
by him in forty seconds. Suppose The
bah al The top Of ST. Paul's cathedral
to be six feet in diameter. what did
the gliding cost at 81 pence per square
inch? Answer. 1897 los. Id.
The following in ane minute and
twenty seconds Suppose city to be ii.
Illuminated With $500 lamps, each lamp
TO consume one pint of oil every four
hours in succession. how many gal
Ions would they consume in forty
years? Answer, 100, $4,000 gallons.
Another curious question was. Sup
pose the earth 10 consist of or ZOO. 900
inhabitants and suppose they die in
thirty years and four months. how
many have returned TO dust since the |
time Of Adam. computing it to be $3.50 \
years. Multiply the answer by %.
During one of his exhibition tours. |
fortunately for the led. his perform |
mces attracted the attention of emf |
nent scholars, who, after making in |
quirles, subsequently undertook his
education. He was attached to the /
ordnance survey for a short time and |
afterwar1 was associated with Ste
phenson, the great engineer,
Some years after he entered parHa. |
ment. and numerous stories are extant
of his wonderful skill IN detecting |
flaw In some elaborate sets of ealcula.
lions, whereby he was often enabled 10 |
upset IN opponents case. or ut other |
times he would establish his own ease
by arguments based upon Eathemat-
icnl data. possibly only ut the moment |
placed before him. II is said that on |
one occasion an opposing counsel asked |
that he might not he allowed to remain |
in the committee room on the ground
that mature had endowed him with
qualities that did moi place bis oppo-
nents on fair footing"
After taking leading part IN many
important engineering works he died at
Dartmouth Sept 20, 1878.
Another of these extraordinary chill
dfen, between whom and Bidder hon
ors We're almost equally divided, was
Tereh Colburn born nj Cabot. VT Sept
]. 1904. Signs Of his wonderful power
appeared ~ n very fender age. The
discovery was accidentally made bv
his father, who was much surprised
one day TO hear him repeating the prod
net of several numbers, although at he
time he had received no other nsfrnc-
tion than such as,could lac obtained at
Il small country school whose curricu-
lnm did not include writing or cipher
ing. lie thereupon proposed a variety
of arithmetical questions 20 his son, an
Of which The child answered with re-
facility and correctness. st
the age of eight the boy was able TO
solve most difficult questions by thc
mere operation OF his mind Many
persons of the first eminence for their
la mathematics made a
point of seeing and conversing with
him. and they proposed 10 him n great
variety of questions 10 test his mar
relous powers. Among them were the
following
Give the square root of 9g9999. AIT
n hesltatlng little he replied 999990
l00o0l aud observed that he produce
his result by multiplying tire square q
q .037 by the square Of ~ He wa
hen asked 10 multiply The answer
vice by 40 and once by y, task
which he accomplished successfully.
hough the answer consists If seven.
cen figures.
Name the cube root Of ll3 .99J.3iS
"a To this he gave the correct au
.wer In five seconds How many times
would a coach wheel twelve feet p
circumference turn around in 2iG mile
md how many minutes In forty-eigh
'earsI TO the first be replied in t-S'
seconds 1860. and 10 the second, DO
ore the question could be- written
lown, 25.22.2S 500. What are the fac
ors of 1872 TO this he replied 9Il
nd 263. which are the only factors
london Globe