WITHOUT PEN OR, PENCIL.

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 11, 14 January 1933, Page 15

WITHOUT PEN OR, PENCIL.

The last box of .mangoes at a recent city markets sale was "knocked down" to a lady for the sum of thirty-four shillings. Before taking delivery the auctioneer offered to let her have them at the rate of fourpenee per dozen cheaper, provided that she would take at the same rate an extra dozen and a half that had dropped out of some broken cases and were then lying on the floor. The offer being accepted, the question arose how many mangoes were in the box, and this the reader will be able to determine for himself with, the following additional information. The bill for the number in the box plus the dozen and a half extra ones was only two shillings and eightpenee more than thesum that she had bid for the box of fruit only.' How many were in it? At the beginning of the year, 1932 a poultry farmer had a number of cockerels in one section of the farm, and in one of the other largo yards were young pullets that had not begun to lay, the number of the latter being exactly one hundred more than tEe number of the corkerels. At the end of 1932 when counted more had been added to each yard than had been taken away, the net increase in the case of the pullets being 5 per cent, and the cockerels 10 per cent. If taking the two yards,together this meant a net increase of 7 per cent., what were the respective numbers at the beginning of 1932? FOUR SIMPLE QUESTIONS. A Marked Course.—lf a straight course one and a half miles in length is marked by posts one chain apart, how many posts should there be? Two-foot Rule.—How much too long is a two-foot rule which shows that a distance of twelve feet six inches is apparently only twelve feet? How Much Each.—A certain number of boys had one pound ten shillings\and one penny, each having as many pence as there were boys. How-much did they have each? A Floor Area.—The floor of a room is hajf, as long again as its width, the superficial area of it being one hundred and twenty-one arid a half'feet. What are its dimensions? A SUKVEYOR'S DESIGN. 'It was not a coincidence but a surveyor's design when measuring two square blocks and an oblong ditto within a town common that the small side of the latter section was the same length as a. side of the smaller square block, and the sido of the other paddock the same measurement as the long side of tho oblong area. The total area of the three -blocks is seventy acres, but are not adjoining one another, and it is a question of fencing them separately that is the crux of this problem, albeit that the correct solution should be found without the aid of pen or pencil. The owner-has already let a contract to fence the two square sections for the sum of ninety pounds at a fixed price per chain, but the.lowest tender that he received for the fencing of the oblong block exceeds by five pounds what it would be at the same rate per chain as in the other two areas. Can the reader find how much that tender must have been if he is told that the combined area of the two square blocks is fifty acres? This the reader will find is purely a question for the armchair. A SUBDIVISION. • While on the subject of "broad acres," here is a useful yet simple question on a subdivision that should interest more than the rural reader. A forty-acre block of lands square in shape is fenced on all four sides, but three-fourths of it is in rough bush condition the other ten acres being a feneed-off square section in the northwest corner, its north and west boundaries forming part of the boundaries of the whole block. The farmer has four sons, who are now breaking in the rough thirty acres which are to be divided into four equally-sized and shaped portions and fenced in that way. The existing fences on the eastern and southern boundaries of the ten-acre section upon which the fanner's homostead is situated, arc to be given by the farmer (so far as the half-value is concerned) to the boys, and the question is the amount of fencing that will have to be erected to conform with the design of subdivision mentioned. The lads have agreed to share the cost of the new fencing between them, though' it is obvious that by conforming to the stated conditions there will not be an equal length of new fencing (when the thirty acres have been properly enclosed in seven and a half acre sections), on each of those small pieces. What is the minimum cost of erecting the necessary new fences to complete the subdivision of the forty-acre -paddock into fivo portions, at ten shillings per chain? A CRYPTOGRAPH. - Of the many types of cryptograph that have appeared in this column, perhaps the one now presented is the most novel, yet it should not puzzle the reader for" more than a few moments to find the key. The method of disguise is a uniform one, and has been used very seldom in- messages of great importance, but, like the" one that appeared last week, has \ the advantage of being able to be rapidly written and road. The code as written appears in four distinct sections. EHNMHI FYIAD ' TSSHR NAXRSEN ODU SBMHA DEAATD NEUSLI GCICLG NOE MLYLL OIYCETE YUS MIDEHR ELEAU BALTB ALOI EEWE OHEKEO IMOEEIH KPLDWD RHLBRH VH RLT HEF OTSSET HTWEES OAAI DAIPASO TASFCGW