During a Nelson celebration I was standing in Trafalgar Square with a friend of puzzling proclivities. He had for some time been gazing at the column in an abstracted way, and seem...
Here is a neat little puzzle in counting. In how many different ways may the two pawns advance to the eighth square? You may move them in any order you like to form a different seq...
A good example of the lighter kind of problem that occasionally comes before them is that which is known amongst them by the name of "The Ambiguous Photograph." Though it is perple...
Here is a rather entertaining little puzzle with moving counters. You only need twelve counters--six of one colour, marked A, C, E, G, I, and K, and the other six marked B, D, F, H...
I wonder how many of my readers are acquainted with the puzzle of the "Dutchmen's Wives"--in which you have to determine the names of three men's wives, or, rather, which wife belo...
Not fifty miles from Cadiz stood in the middle ages a castle, all traces of which have for centuries disappeared. Among other interesting features, this castle contained a particul...
Once upon a time the Lord Abbot of St. Edmondsbury, in consequence of "devotions too strong for his head," fell sick and was unable to leave his bed. As he lay awake, tossing his h...
"Speaking of relationships," said the Parson at a certain dinner-party, "our legislators are getting the marriage law into a frightful tangle, Here, for example, is a puzzling case...
In one of the outlying suburbs of London a man had a square plot of ground on which he decided to build eight villas, as shown in the illustration, with a common recreation ground...
Here is a problem that has never yet been solved, nor has its impossibility been demonstrated. Play the knight once to every square of the chessboard in a complete tour, numbering...
"How much did yer pay for them oranges, Bill?" "I ain't a-goin' to tell yer, Jim. But I beat the old cove down fourpence a hundred." "What good did that do yer?" "Well, it meant fi...
In how many different ways may the numbers on a single die be marked, with the only condition that the 1 and 6, the 2 and 5, and the 3 and 4 must be on opposite sides? It is a simp...
Here is another entertaining problem with the nine digits, the nought being excluded. Using each figure once, and only once, we can form two multiplication sums that have the same...
Twelve men connected with a large firm in the City of London sit down to luncheon together every day in the same room. The tables are small ones that only accommodate two persons a...
I have come across the following little poser in an old book. I wonder how many readers will see the author's intended solution to the riddle. Christians the week's _first_ day for...
One of the pilgrims was a Dyer, but Chaucer tells us nothing about him, the Tales being incomplete. Time after time the company had pressed this individual to produce a puzzle of s...
Bandy-ball, cambuc, or goff (the game so well known to-day by the name of golf), is of great antiquity, and was a special favourite at Solvamhall Castle. Sir Hugh de Fortibus was h...
Then Abbot David looked grave, and said that this incident brought to his mind the painful fact that John the Cellarer had been caught robbing the cask of best Malvoisie that was r...
It was now daylight, and still had I to pass through the royal gardens outside of the castle walls. These gardens had once been laid out by an old king's gardener, who had become b...
Pope has told us that all chance is but "direction which thou canst not see," and certainly we all occasionally come across remarkable coincidences—little things against the probab...
In 1863, C.F. de Jaenisch first discussed the "Five Queens Puzzle"--to place five queens on the chessboard so that every square shall be attacked or occupied--which was propounded...
Here is an easy geometrical puzzle. The crescent is formed by two circles, and C is the centre of the larger circle. The width of the crescent between B and D is 9 inches, and betw...
Select the name of any flower that you think suitable, and that contains eight letters. Touch one of the primroses with your pencil and jump over one of the adjoining flowers to an...
Though the incident known in the Club as "The Cornish Cliff Mystery" has never been published, every one remembers the case with which it was connected—an embezzlement at Todd's Ba...
When I first published my solution to the last puzzle, I was led to attempt the expression of all numbers in turn up to 100 by a mixed fraction containing all the nine digits. Here...
Here is another queer travelling puzzle, the solution of which calls for ingenuity. In this case the traveller starts from the black town and wishes to go as far as possible while...
The Pierrot in the illustration is standing in a posture that represents the sign of multiplication. He is indicating the peculiar fact that 15 multiplied by 93 produces exactly th...
"It is a glorious game!" an enthusiast was heard to exclaim. "At the close of last season, of the footballers of my acquaintance four had broken their left arm, five had broken the...
Where a large number of workmen are employed on a building it is customary to provide every man with a little disc bearing his number. These are hung on a board by the men as they...
Here is a puzzle that will, I think, be found as amusing as instructive. We are given a ring of eight circles. Leaving circle 8 blank, we are required to write in the name of a sev...