habits of poverty, the aspect of this chamber
still struck me with astonishment. The only thing like food was some
Indian cornmeal carefully covered up in an iron vessel, and a jar of
water; of clothing, the cloak which formed the window-curtain, and a
sheepskin fashioned into a rude resemblance to a coat, were all that
were to be seen. The furniture consisted of a low stool and a single
chair, the trunk of an elm-tree representing a table. On this, however,
an attempt at a desk had been made, and here, to my astonishment, were
now masses of papers covered with figures from top to bottom,--algebraic
signs and calculations without end! Not one word of writing, not a
phrase in any language, was to be met with, but page after page of these
mystical sums, which seemed to be carried on from one sheet of paper to
the other. How eagerly I sought out something which might give me a clew
to the writer of these figures, but in vain; I pored over them long
and carefully, I studied their form and their size. I tried--how
hopelessly!--to trace out some purpose in the calculations, and to
divine their object and end; but to no avail! I had heard tell of
persons whose intellects had been deranged by the intense study of a
difficult problem, the search after some unattainable object in science.
I had read wonderful stories of long years of toilsome labor,--whole
lives passed in an arduous struggle, till death had at last relieved
them from a contest with the "impossible." Could the writer of these be
the victim of such a delusion? Might he have sought out this lone spot,
to live apart and away from all the distracting influences of life, and
to devote himself to some such task? Had his mind given way under this
pressure, or had weakened faculties first led to this career? All these
doubts presented themselves to me in turns; and again I turned to the
complex pages of figures to assist my conjectures.

Alas! they could convey nothing to me,--they were symbols only of so
much toil and labor, but to what end or object I could not guess. As I
sat thus, I thought that I detected an error in one of the calculations.
It was an algebraic quantity misstated; and, on looking down, I remarked
that the mistake was repeated over and over, through a long series of
figures. Any proficiency I had ever attained at school was in matters
of this kind, owing, as I did, everything to Raper's guidance and
instruction; so that I found little difficulty in asc