For years I have been perpetually consulted by my juvenile friends about this little puzzle. Most children seem to know it, and yet, curiously enough, they are invariably unacquain...
One of the big clocks in the Cogitators' Club was found the other night to have stopped just when, as will be seen in the illustration, the second hand was exactly midway between t...
One of the oldest card puzzles is by Claude Caspar Bachet de Meziriac, first published, I believe, in the 1624 edition of his work. Rearrange the sixteen court cards (including the...
In a recent motor ride it was found that we had gone at the rate of ten miles an hour, but we did the return journey over the same route, owing to the roads being more clear of tra...
This is a puzzle game for two players. Each player has a single rook. The first player places his rook on any square of the board that he may choose to select, and then the second...
This is a puzzle based on a pretty little idea first dealt with by the late Mr. Sam Loyd. A man had nine pieces of chain, as shown in the illustration. He wanted to join these fift...
The frolicsome Wife of Bath, when called upon to favour the company, protested that she had no aptitude for such things, but that her fourth husband had had a liking for them, and...
Three countrymen met at a cattle market. "Look here," said Hodge to Jakes, "I'll give you six of my pigs for one of your horses, and then you'll have twice as many animals here as...
Tommy: "How old are you, mamma?" Mamma: "Let me think, Tommy. Well, our three ages add up to exactly seventy years." Tommy: "That's a lot, isn't it? And how old are you, papa?" Pap...
Two friends were spending their bank holiday on a cycling trip. Stopping for a rest at a village inn, they consulted a route map, which is represented in our illustration in an exc...
IN how many different ways may the word DIAMOND be read in the arrangement shown? You may start wherever you like at a D and go up or down, backwards or forwards, in and out, in an...
Can you cut this chain out of a piece of cardboard without any join whatever? Every link is solid; without its having been split and afterwards joined at any place. It is an intere...
I happened to have lying on my table a number of strips of cardboard, with numbers printed on them from 1 upwards in numerical order. The idea suddenly came to me, as ideas have a...
+------------------------------+ | | | P | | | | P | | P | | P | | P | | P | | P | | | +------------------------------+ Here is a little puzzle that was put to one of the sons of E...
Can you say correctly just how many squares and other rectangles the chessboard contains? In other words, in how great a number of different ways is it possible to indicate a squar...
Cut a Greek cross into five pieces that will form two such crosses, both of the same size. The solution of this puzzle is very beautiful.
Here is a little game that is childishly simple in its conditions. But it is well worth investigation. Mr. Stubbs pulled a small table between himself and his friend, Mr. Wilson, a...
One of the everyday puzzles of life is the working out of routes. If you are taking a holiday on your bicycle, or a motor tour, there always arises the question of how you are to m...
[Illustration: +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ | | | | | | | | | | ............. ....... ............. | | . | | . | . | . | . | | . |
The illustration is a rough sketch somewhat resembling the British flag, the Union Jack. It is not possible to draw the whole of it without lifting the pencil from the paper or goi...
What is the largest sum of money--all in current silver coins and no four-shilling piece--that I could have in my pocket without being able to give change for a half-sovereign?
The above clock face indicates a little before 42 minutes past 4. The hands will again point at exactly the same spots a little after 23 minutes past 8. In fact, the hands will hav...
Hiram B. Judkins, a cattle-dealer of Texas, had five droves of animals, consisting of oxen, pigs, and sheep, with the same number of animals in each drove. One morning he sold all...
[Illustration: +---------------------+ | \... A .../ | | (I) |.......| (V) | |\_____|_______|_____/| |......| |------| |.. R .| |. I ..| |......| |......| | _____|_______|_____ | |...
Here is a puzzle by Pappus, who lived at Alexandria about the end of the third century. It is the fifth proposition in the eighth book of his _Mathematical Collections_. I give it...
It may be interesting to introduce here, though it is not strictly a puzzle, an ingenious method for making a paper box. Take a square of stout paper and by successive foldings mak...
Readers will recognize the diagram as a familiar friend of their youth. A man possessed a square-shaped estate. He bequeathed to his widow the quarter of it that is shaded off. The...
It is a curious fact that the answers always given to some of the best-known puzzles that appear in every little book of fireside recreations that has been published for the last f...
Here is a really hard puzzle, and yet its conditions are so absurdly simple. Every reader knows how to place four pennies so that they are equidistant from each other. All you have...
"Here is a little puzzle," said a Parson, "that I have found peculiarly fascinating. It is so simple, and yet it keeps you interested indefinitely." The reverend gentleman took a s...