302.— A PROBLEM IN MOSAICS.
The art of producing pictures or designs by means of joining together pieces of hard sub- stances, either naturally or artificially coloured, is of very great antiquity. It was certainly known in the time of the Pharaohs, and we find a reference in the Book of Esther to " a pave- ment of red, and blue, and white, and black marble." Some of this ancient work that has come down to us, especially some of the Roman mosaics, would seem to show clearly, even where design is not at first evident, that much thought was bestowed upon apparently disorderly ar- rangements. Where, for example, the work has been produced with a very limited number of colours, there are evidences of great ingenuity in preventing the same tints coming in close proximity. Lady readers who are familiar with the construction of patchwork quilts will know how desirable it is sometimes, when they are limited in the choice of material, to prevent pieces of the same stuff coming too near to- gether. Now, this puzzle will apply equally to patchwork quilts or tesselated pavements.
It will be seen from the diagram how a square piece of flooring may be paved with sixty-two square tiles of the eight colours violet, red, yellow, green, orange, purple, white, and blue (indicated by the initial letters), so that no tile is in line with a similarly coloured tile, vertically, horizontally, or diagonally. Sixty- four such tiles could not possibly be placed under these conditions, but the two shaded squares happen to be occupied by iron ventilators. The puzzle is this. These two ventilators
| V | R | Y | G | O | P | W | B |
| W | B | O | P | Y | G | V | R |
| G | P | W | V | B | R | Y | O |
| R | Y | B | O | G | V | P | W |
| B | G | R | Y | P | W | O | V |
| O | V | P | W | R | Y | B | G |
| P | W | G | B | V | O | R | Y |
| O | V | R | W | B | G |
have to be removed to the positions indicated by the darkly bordered tiles, and two tiles placed in those bottom comer squares. Can you readjust the thirty-two tiles so that no two of the same colour shall still be in line?
303.— UNDER THE VEIL.
If the reader will examine the above diagram, he will see that I have so placed eight V's, eight E's, eight I's, and eight L's in the diagram that no letter is in line with a similar one horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. Thus, no V is in line with another V, no E with another E, and so
| V | E | I | L | ||||
| I | L | V | E | ||||
| I | V | L | E | ||||
| L | E | I | V | ||||
| V | I | E | L | ||||
| E | L | V | I | ||||
| E | V | L | I | ||||
| L | I | E | V |
on. There are a great many different ways of arranging the letters under this condition. The puzzle is to find an arrangement that produces the greatest possible number of four-letter words, reading upwards and downwards, backwards and forwards, or diagonally. All repetitions count as different words, and the five variations that may be used are : VEIL, VILE, LEVI, LIVE, and EVIL.
This will be made perfectly clear when I say that the above arrangement scores eight, because the top and bottom row both give VEIL; the second and seventh columns both give VEIL; and the two diagonals, starting from the L in the 5 th row and E in the 8 th row, both give LIVE and EVIL. There are therefore eight different readings of the words in all. This difficult word puzzle is given as an example of the use of chessboard analysis in solving such things. Only a person who is familiar with the "Eight Queens" problem could hope to solve it.
304.—BACHET'S SQUARE.
One of the oldest card puzzles is by Claude Caspar Bachet de Meziriac, first published, I believe, in the 1624 edition of his work. Rearrange the sixteen court cards (including the aces) in a square so that in no row of four cards, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, shall be found two cards of the same suit or the same value. This in itself is easy enough, but a point of the puzzle is to find in how many different ways this may be done. The eminent French mathematician A. Labosne, in his modern edition of Bachet, gives the answer incorrectly. And yet the puzzle is really quite easy. Any arrangement produces seven more by turning the square round and reflecting it in a mirror. These are counted as different by Bachet.
