Figs. 201-210.—Two Ways to Cut a Five-pointed Star.
Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Harrison, and Thomas Lynch, Jr., were appointed a committee by the Continental Congress to design a national flag for the baby United States, and you all know that in the little old house, 239 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Betsey Ross made the
First American Flag.
You have also probably read the legend so frequently published, which tells us that the stars in the original design were six-pointed, and were only changed because some one showed how
To Cut a Five-pointed Star with One Clip of the Scissors,
by folding Fig. 201 in the form of Fig. 202, and folding the latter in the form of Fig. 204, again folding in the shape of Fig. 205, and then making a cross-cut at the dotted line. When the paper was unfolded it appeared in the form of Fig. 210, a five-pointed star.
Another Way to Cut a Five-pointed Star,
is to fold a circular disk of paper (Fig. 206) across its diameter (Fig. 207), and fold this in the form of a fan (Fig. 209), which when pressed down flat will be Fig. 208. One cut, where the dotted line is shown on Fig. 208, will produce the five-pointed star (Fig. 210). If, as according to the legend, it was because of the simplicity of this one clip of the scissors that the five-pointed star was adopted, the old legend needs revision, for