"You have much to learn. My friend and myself do not play for results of that antiquated kind. We seek in chess the wonderful, the whimsical, the weird. Did you ever see a position like that?"
I inwardly congratulated myself that I never had.
"That position, sir, materializes the sinuous evolvements and syncretic, synthetic, and synchronous concatenations of two cerebral individualities. It is the product of an amphoteric and intercalatory interchange of—"
"Have you seen the evening paper, sir?" interrupted the man opposite, holding out a newspaper. I noticed on the margin beside his thumb some pencilled writing. Thanking him, I took the paper and read—"Insane, but quite harmless. He is in my charge."
After that I let the poor fellow run on in his wild way until both got out at the next station.
But that queer position became fixed indelibly in my mind, with Black's last move 43. K to Kt 8; and a short time afterwards I found it actually possible to arrive at such a position in forty-three moves. Can the reader construct such a sequence? How did White get his rooks and king's bishop into their present positions, considering Black can never have moved his king's bishop? No odds were given, and every move was perfectly legitimate.
[MEASURING, WEIGHING, AND PACKING PUZZLES.]
"Measure still for measure."
Measure for Measure, v. 1.
Apparently the first printed puzzle involving the measuring of a given quantity of liquid by pouring from one vessel to others of known capacity was that propounded by Niccola Fontana, better known as "Tartaglia" (the stammerer), 1500-1559. It consists in dividing 24 oz. of valuable balsam into three equal parts, the only measures available being vessels holding 5, 11, and 13 ounces respectively. There are many different solutions to this puzzle in six manipulations, or pourings from one vessel to another. Bachet de Méziriac reprinted this and other of Tartaglia's puzzles in his Problèmes plaisans et délectables (1612). It is the general opinion that puzzles of this class can only be solved by trial, but I think formulæ can be constructed for the solution generally of certain related cases. It is a practically unexplored field for investigation.