Page 5 Advertisements Column 2

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 105, 1 May 1875, Page 5

STANDARD INSURAISCE COMPANY. NOTICE OF REMOVAL. DURING- the Erection of the Company's New Offices on their present site, the business will be curried on in the premises of Mr Rose, clothier, on the opposite side of Princes street. CHAS. REID, Manager. FINE OLD COGNAC. SPECIAL IMPORTATION. WE have just landed 200 cases Riviere Gardrat and Co.'a old brandy, which is considered the finest in the Home markets, and has been pronounced by competent judges here to be superior to any hitherto imported. Also 10 quarter-casks (8 year old) Ardbeg whisky. ESTHER & LOW, George street. ALTERATION OF TIME On and after SATURDAY, MAY 1, COBB'S COACHES To CLYDE via LAWRENCE will leave Dunedin On WEDNESDAYS and SATURDAYS, And leave Clyde for Dunedin, via Lawrence, on the same days. JNO.^CHAPLIN & CO. ? Manse street, Dunedin, April 27, 1875.

Tale Caiculations. — Mr R. A. Proctor lias published some curious speculations on strange hands of cards, especially at whist. The calculation lias been made, by Babbage, I believe, that if the entire population of the earth, taken at 1,000,000,000 persons, were to deal the cards incessantly day and night for 100,000,000 years at the rate of a deal by each person a minute, they -would not exhaust the one hundred thousandth part of the number of essentially different ways in which the cards can be distributed. On the other hand, it is recorded that there are two well authenticated instances within ten years of one player holding all the trumps in his own hand. Those who believe this say that there is no improbability in the occurrence once in ten ysars of the whole of the trumps being held by tho dealer, because there is an immense number of ways in which this may be done. The thirteen cards may be dropped in any order, and the number of permutations in dealing the other thirty-nine cards iB enormous. Taking the first calculation for comparison, Mr Proctor shows that the 1,01)0,000,000 inhabitants of the earth would have only to deal for one hour and fifty mimites for an even chance of giving all trumps to one of the dealers, so that the remarkable hand would be held by some one or another at least thirteen times a day. Having ascertained this, Mr Proctor sought to verify the usually received calculation, first above mentioned, and found that it fell far short of the truth. A cipher must have been dropped somewhere, for only one millionth of the possible permutations Avould have been gone through after all the inhabitants of the earth had been dealing night and day for a hundred million years. It is usually remarked that the human mind is incapable of grasping the vast figures recording astronomical facts, but Mr Proctor has shown that even the distance of the fixed stars measured in hairbreadths is inconceivably smaller than the number of ways in which a pack of carde may be arranged. Taking the breadth of the finest spiders web at the millionth part of an inch, he points out that the distance of the star Alpha Centauri would contain this breadth about 1,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. But even this enormous sum would have to be multiplied by a number containing forty -four digits, that is by more than 10,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, to amount to the number of ways in which the fifty -two cards might be dealt in one lot, not in four as at whist." If this number were represented by counters consisting of cubes bigger than the thickness of a spider's thread along the edge, and these tiny counters were built up into a great cube, the size of it would be 7,000 times the distance of the sun from the earth, that is, its length, its breadth, and its thickness, would each be of this enormous measure. The number representing the possible ways in which cards in a pack may be arranged is, proximately, 80,657,470, 000,000,000,000,0007000,000, 000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000. It would be a problem of itself to give this number a name. ' Leader.' Tho Paris correspondent of the 'London Daily Telegraph' writes : « The Crown Jewels of France have returned to us. At the turn of the war they were secretly despatched to England, and only last week was it deemed safe to recall them. In number, according to the inventory made for Louis XVIII, they were already 64,812, weighing 18,751 carats, of £837,000 value. Since then precious stones have risen enormously in price, and the late Emperor added to his treasures. The Crown of France in which is set the ' Regent' diamond and 5,360 other jewels, was valued at £310,030 half a century ago. The other famous diamond the ' Sancy' is set in the first Emperor's sword, a nicknack priced at £11,000. A plague in brilliants of the order of the Holy Ghost, is calculated at £16,000. The crown jewels of France were stolen Augußt 16, 1792, by a band of forty thieves, who climbed the lamp-posts and broke through a window of the gem-room. A poor wretch was guillotined for this offence, whereof he was perfectly innocent ; but one guiltless head more or less, made small difference, in 1792. The jewelery were all found in the attic of a house situated in the Champ Elysees, but as to how thoy got there, and lion? tug police hoard of them is a inystory to this day."