different shapes with those four sides." "But
you forget," Rackbrane said, with a twinkle in his eye, "that you told
me once you had planted this tree equidistant from all the four corners
of the garden." Can you work out the garden's area?

183.--DRAWING A SPIRAL.

If you hold the page horizontally and give it a quick rotary motion
while looking at the centre of the spiral, it will appear to revolve.
Perhaps a good many readers are acquainted with this little optical
illusion. But the puzzle is to show how I was able to draw this spiral
with so much exactitude without using anything but a pair of compasses
and the sheet of paper on which the diagram was made. How would you
proceed in such circumstances?

[Illustration]

184.--HOW TO DRAW AN OVAL.

Can you draw a perfect oval on a sheet of paper with one sweep of the
compasses? It is one of the easiest things in the world when you know
how.

185.--ST. GEORGE'S BANNER.

At a celebration of the national festival of St. George's Day I was
contemplating the familiar banner of the patron saint of our country. We
all know the red cross on a white ground, shown in our illustration.
This is the banner of St. George. The banner of St. Andrew (Scotland) is
a white "St. Andrew's Cross" on a blue ground. That of St. Patrick
(Ireland) is a similar cross in red on a white ground. These three are
united in one to form our Union Jack.

Now on looking at St. George's banner it occurred to me that the
following question would make a simple but pretty little puzzle.
Supposing the flag measures four feet by three feet, how wide must the
arm of the cross be if it is required that there shall be used just the
same quantity of red and of white bunting?

[Illustration]

186.--THE CLOTHES LINE PUZZLE.

A boy tied a clothes line from the top of each of two poles to the base
of the other. He then proposed to his father the following question. As
one pole was exactly seven feet above the ground and the other exactly
five feet, what was the height from the ground where the two cords
crossed one another?

187.--THE MILKMAID PUZZLE.

[Illustration]

Here is a little pastoral puzzle that the reader may, at first sight, be
led into supposing is very profound, involving deep calculations. He may
even say that it is quite impossible to give any answer unless we are
told something definite as to the distances. And yet it is really quite
"childlike and bland."

In the corne