Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1906-04-07
AsToNisHE0 The KING.
Marvellous Feats of Mental Calculs-
tors Recalled.

distinguished OF modern mental cal
culators. who astonished his majesty
by the maryelously quick fashion in
which from scanty supply OF facts
he calculated the number of minutes
which he had lived through since he
was born, the amount OF money he
had in his pocket, and 50 forth,
Each of these ealculators 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
a disease, for he could not 80 to
church without calculating exactly
how many words were uttered by
each performer He would stride over
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
cGbical eighths of an inch there are
in a quadrangular mass measuring
23,145,7S9 yards long, 5,642,732 yards
wide. and 54,965 yards thick, and az
ter a very brief mental calculation he
gave an accurate answer. At last he
made himself, as he said. drunk with
reckoning" imposing upon himself
80 ~, -
grains of eight different kinds Of corn
and pulse there were in 200, 000. 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-
mainder of the calculation, as usual.
mentally.
Mr.. George Parker Bidder. who
about half century ago was an emin-
emit civil engineer. had a wonderful
reputation for his system OF mental
calculation. When he was a little boy
| only 6 years old he used to amuse
| himself by counting up to hundred,
then to a thousand. and next to q
| 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
1 20
| tion 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 oc.
| cupied, and then, when at last he
went out into the professional world
and became famous as an engineer
it 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 a mental calculation
! that the figures of counsel were
wrong within a few seconds of theiI
| 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
4 parentage or training-usually the re-
verse. Thus, in 1889, little Stellar
named Vito Mangiamele, IL years OF
age, son of shepherd, astonished the
members of the Academy of Sciences
I OF Do rfc xxyh he
by the wonderful speed and accuracy
| of his mental reckonings. In half q
| minute he calculated for them the
cube root of 3,796,416, and in three
minutes he extracted the tenth root Of
| 282, 475,249.
| Then he was asked this question:
| What number has the following pro-
| portions, that if its cube is added to five
times its square, and then AZ times
the number and the number 40 bt
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 un-
| derstand it, but while his interrogation
was repeating the last word the boy
replied, THE number is g."
Nearly 100 years ago also a young
| American boy named Zero Colburu
| created a sensation in London. He
was only years old at the time and
did not know 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 21,7S4 by $40, and when he gave
| him the correct answer Immediately
tse 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
6s.202 by 181, which came to the same
thing. But why he had made the
| change In the original figures himself