The illustration represents a box containing thirty-six letter-blocks. The puzzle is to rearrange these blocks so that no A shall be in a line vertically, horizontally, or diagonal...
Before Mr. Beauchamp Cholmondely Marjoribanks set out on his tour in the Far East, he prided himself on his knowledge of magic squares, a subject that he had made his special hobby...
The last extract that I will give is one that will, I think, interest those readers who may find some of the above puzzles too easy. It is a hard nut, and should only be attempted...
Mrs. Hobson's boy had an accident when playing with the fire, and burnt two of the corners of a pretty hearthrug. The damaged corners have been cut away, and it now has the appeara...
This worthy man was, as Chaucer tells us, "a very perfect, gentle knight," and "In many a noble army had he been: At mortal battles had he been fifteen." His shield, as he is seen...
A man has twenty-five dog kennels all communicating with each other by doorways, as shown in the illustration. He wishes to arrange his twenty dogs so that they shall form a knight...
After dinner, the five boys of a household happened to find a parcel of sugar-plums. It was quite unexpected loot, and an exciting scramble ensued, the full details of which I will...
Place the remaining eight White pieces in such a position that White shall have the choice of thirty-six different mates on the move. Every move that checkmates and leaves a differ...
A merchant of Bagdad had ten barrels of precious balsam for sale. They were numbered, and were arranged in two rows, one on top of the other, as shown in the picture. The smaller t...
In the illustration Hendrick and Katrün are seen engaged in the exhilarating sport of attempting the capture of a couple of hogs. Why did they fail? Strange as it may seem, a compl...
The art of producing pictures or designs by means of joining together pieces of hard substances, either naturally or artificially coloured, is of very great antiquity. It was certa...
The Carpenter produced the carved wooden pillar that he is seen holding in the illustration, wherein the knight is propounding his knotty problem to the goodly company (No. 4), and...
It is said that the inhabitants of Montenegro have a little dice game that is both ingenious and well worth investigation. The two players first select two different pairs of odd n...
It will be seen that this skater has marked on the ice sixty-four points or stars, and he proposes to start _from his present position_ near the corner and enter every one of the p...
The little affair of the "Runaway Motor-car" is a good illustration of how a knowledge of some branch of puzzledom may be put to unexpected use. A member of the Club, whose name I...
In this case we do not use the complete set of twenty-eight dominoes to be found in the ordinary box. We dispense with all those dominoes that have a five or a six on them and limi...
Our friend Professor Rackbrane is seen in the illustration to be propounding another of his little posers. He is explaining that since he last had occasion to take down those three...
This illustration represents a troupe of clowns I once saw on the Continent. Each clown bore one of the numbers 1 to 9 on his body. After going through the usual tumbling, juggling...
The following is the plan of the north wing of a certain gaol, showing the sixteen cells all communicating by open doorways. Fifteen prisoners were numbered and arranged in the cel...
Farmer Tompkins had five trusses of hay, which he told his man Hodge to weigh before delivering them to a customer. The stupid fellow weighed them two at a time in all possible way...
On one occasion Sir Hugh greatly perplexed his chief builder. He took this worthy man to the walls of the donjon keep and pointed to a window there. "Methinks," said he, "yon windo...
Most people know that if you take any sum of money in pounds, shillings, and pence, in which the number of pounds (less than L12) exceeds that of the pence, reverse it (calling the...
The puzzle is to rearrange the fifty-one pieces on the chessboard so that no queen shall attack another queen, no rook attack another rook, no bishop attack another bishop, and no...
The puzzle in this case is simply to take your pencil and, starting from one black star, strike out all the stars in twelve straight strokes, ending at the other black star. It wil...
"At the party was a widower who has but lately come into these parts," says the record; "and, to be sure, he was an exceedingly melancholy man, for he did sit away from the company...
[Illustration: +---+---+---+ | 1 | 9 | 2 | +---+---+---+ | 3 | 8 | 4 | +---+---+---+ | 5 | 7 | 6 | +---+---+---+ ] It will be seen in the diagram that we have so arranged the nine...
The Friar was a merry fellow, with a sweet tongue and twinkling eyes. "Courteous he was and lowly of service. There was a man nowhere so virtuous." Yet he was "the best beggar in a...
The annals of Scotland Yard contain some remarkable cases of jewel robberies, but one of the most perplexing was the theft of Lady Littlewood's rubies. There have, of course, been...
The proprietor of a small London cafe has given me some interesting figures. He says that the ladies who come alone to his place for refreshment spend each on an average eighteenpe...
Some few years ago I happened to read somewhere that Abnit Vandermonde, a clever mathematician, who was born in 1736 and died in 1793, had devoted a good deal of study to the quest...