Genre:

Regular Feature—Anecdote, Drollery

Relevant illustrations:

eng. [4]

Subjects:

Mathematics, Amusement

    With reference to the short fiction 'The Sirdar's Chess-board' published in the magazine in August, reports that 'some of our readers appear to have been as much interested in the solution of the puzzle as in the story itself', and, as well as reproducing the original diagram, prints 'several interesting answers' sent in 'by our correspondents' showing the 'correct mathematical solution' (970–71). In addition, one 'lady correspondent offers a solution in which she shows that by a different arrangement a chess-board of sixty-three, instead of sixty-four or sixty-five, squares is made' (971).