INTELLECT SHARPENERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19502, 4 December 1926, Page 5 (Supplement)

INTELLECT SHARPENERS.

»:r a tu iHEUios.-

Readers with a little ingenuity will find in this column an abundant etora of entertainment and amusements, and the solving of the problems should pro* vide excellent mental exhilaration, While soma of the " nuts " may appear lasrder than others, it will be found that nono will require a sledgo hammer to crack them. Readers are requested not to send in their solutions unless specially asked for, but to keep them for comparison with those which will appear each Saturday, following thin publication of the problems. a pamily coinrinmra. Mr. CharLis Coates, of the Waikato, is a friend (if many years standing, and when he telegraphed to me thus other day to meet him at the railway station it was a pleasure for me to do so. He had a lady with him and, when introduced, I found that it was his own suiter, Mavis, whom I had not seen since her childhood, she being away at ii-beard-ing school in the - days when I used k» visit the Coates' home, " I want you to call me Mavis, if you would, Mr. Simpkins," she said to me on the way to the hotel, " to you I am just plain Mavis Coates." Charles told me that they had come to Auckland to meet his nephew, Honrv, who had been staying with relatives "in Sydney. We had lunch together, and when remarking how like the nephew was to his Aunt Mavis, Henry, to my astonishment, corrected me, and stated that though Charles was his ancle he was not the nephew of Mavis., Knowing that both Charles and Mavis woro full brother and sister, their own parents being still living, the nephew's remark perplexed m« not a little. Charles saw my bewilderment* but offered no tixplanation, merely saying that what Ileary had stated was correct However, I was abla to tell thern next day when seeing tlteiii off at- the railway station that I had solved their .little conundrum. What ip the explanation of this queer ifelatioiiship? TBI! BOYS' MABBLES. I don't know what game they ware playing, but that does not really matter. Jack and Bob were playing some game or other for marbles, each starting with the same number. 11l the first gmmo Jack won 20 marbles, but in the. second one he lost two thirds of what ho had in hand, which left Bob with exactly four time 3an many as Jack. How trianv marbles had each boy at the beginning T THE HIKE GQUHTERS. " A veritable brain-clearer in the form of an interesting puzzle." Take a piece of paper and divide into 25 squares, 6 squares by. ft. On tha 9 central squares place 9 counters which should be iaumbered and placed so 12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 The problem is to remove 8 of the counters aad leave the 9th in the central square now occupied by No. 5. The counters are removed just as in draughts, by jumping one over another to a vacant square, but this may be dono in any direction and not diagonally only. A counter may also bs moved from square to square, but the object of the game is to get the 9th counter in the central square in the fewest possible m'ovea. I have not found anyone to accomplish this irfc fewer than 5 moves, and though are not required to send in their solutions, 1 should Like to hear of anyona who flan nchievo the object in fewer than S. Don't forget to remove the counters jumped ovor, and any number of jumps in sttpeesaion count as one move. , TWO SQUARE PJODOOKS. A well-to-do farmer in the Whangaroi district moved his homestead some yeam ago to a site about 5 miles nearer to the town of V/hangai'oi. Tho old pilaw was dismantled, and all sound movable ■ Iraprovementii were taken to the new J homestead. 11l the earlier days he had fenced a 100-acre paddock at the back of liha old home in line form of a perfect iiquare, planting a row of pines along the boundaries of the enclosure, and, when the surveyor measured it, he planted, at the sheep-owner's request, a totara tree at each corner of the block. The blight of some disease got into the pia«s before thev matuired and all of them died off, and the old two-rail fence, having rotted away, th«i only indications left of any enclosure when the homestead was moved were the four totara trees. After the war the iiquatter deoidud to make a present of the block to a returned soldier, and told iiim he could have it if Is fenced it in the form of a perfect square and left the four totara trees outside his boundaries. The returned soldlisr asked him about the possibility of fencing in more than lOu acres. This slier powner smiled, and said there was noc much chfiince of that if he obeyed tho condition, and any surplms acrcagn he could have. The new oecnpisr, knowing a little mitkematira, fenced the land under the donor's conditions, and enclosed the maximum area possible undor tho&e terms. What was the area of the returned soldier's block and how did he fs;c his boundaries under the sheep-owner'a conditions? LAHT WEEK'S BOLVTIQM3. Another Partner. It must, be taken for granted that, if £2500 secures to the hew partner one-third, interest In the business,"the coacani must have been worth £7600 before Bix. Lindsay went. in. That being so, Mr;- Corbin's capital invested, being o:a» and ahalf times more than Mr. Wright's, musthave been £4500, and Mr. Wright's;, £3OOO. As each of the threw) partner*, were to have an equal share in the business of £2600 each, Mr Corbiri would be entitled to the difference between £4500 and £2500, viz. £2OOO, and similarly Mr. Wright's share of Mr. Lindsay's money would bu £SOO. Curious as it. may seem, I ha?t( heard of more than one qualified ad* countant who thinks that tho £25<30 should be apportioned thus: £ISOO to Mr. Corbin, and £IOOO to Mr. Wright, but thii division set oat above is indisputably the comet cne. A Legal Eat. The deceased obviously intended that a. son should receive twice as nradb es bis mother and the mother twice that of her daughter, If, therefore, the whole 'estate were divided in accordance with that intention, which was practically expressed ■ in the will, the son would receive foursevenths,, the mother two-sevenths, and the daughter one-seventh of the full estate. % j .. Strange Marriage Custom. If a man marries a woman and she dies and he then marries her sister and he dies himself, it- in quite correct when relating the man's history to say that ho married ilhe sister of his widow, previously, of course. Simple Mental Problem. Tho bon-bons cost 2s 3d, and iti-3 artistic box being 3s more would, o.t course, be 5s 3d, making the full price of ?s 6dA CurioU3 Questioa. Arrange ten matches thus: P I V E; then take away tho seven U-W of them), forming tho F and E, and four (IV) will be left.