bought feet, and each
mother spent 8s. 51/4d. more than her daughter. Mrs. Robinson spent 6s.
more than Mrs. Evans, who spent about a quarter as much as Mrs. Jones.
Mrs. Smith spent most of all. Mrs. Brown bought 21 yards more than
Bessie--one of the girls. Annie bought 16 yards more than Mary and spent
L3, 0s. 8d. more than Emily. The Christian name of the other girl was
Ada. Now, what was her surname?

141.--SATURDAY MARKETING.

Here is an amusing little case of marketing which, although it deals
with a good many items of money, leads up to a question of a totally
different character. Four married couples went into their village on a
recent Saturday night to do a little marketing. They had to be very
economical, for among them they only possessed forty shilling coins. The
fact is, Ann spent 1s., Mary spent 2s., Jane spent 3s., and Kate spent
4s. The men were rather more extravagant than their wives, for Ned Smith
spent as much as his wife, Tom Brown twice as much as his wife, Bill
Jones three times as much as his wife, and Jack Robinson four times as
much as his wife. On the way home somebody suggested that they should
divide what coin they had left equally among them. This was done, and
the puzzling question is simply this: What was the surname of each
woman? Can you pair off the four couples?

GEOMETRICAL PROBLEMS.

"God geometrizes continually."

PLATO.

"There is no study," said Augustus de Morgan, "which presents so simple
a beginning as that of geometry; there is none in which difficulties
grow more rapidly as we proceed." This will be found when the reader
comes to consider the following puzzles, though they are not arranged in
strict order of difficulty. And the fact that they have interested and
given pleasure to man for untold ages is no doubt due in some measure to
the appeal they make to the eye as well as to the brain. Sometimes an
algebraical formula or theorem seems to give pleasure to the
mathematician's eye, but it is probably only an intellectual pleasure.
But there can be no doubt that in the case of certain geometrical
problems, notably dissection or superposition puzzles, the aesthetic
faculty in man contributes to the delight. For example, there are
probably few readers who will examine the various cuttings of the Greek
cross in the following pages without being in some degree stirred by a
sense of beauty. Law and order in Nature are always pleasing to
contemplate, but wh