Fig. 4.—Square and Circle—The Solution.
THE CARPENTER'S PUZZLE.
This is very similar to the above. A carpenter had to mend a hole in a floor which was two feet wide and twelve feet long. The board given him to mend it with was three feet wide and eight feet long. He was instructed to entirely cover the hole, to allow no part of the board to overlap, and he was allowed to cut the board into two pieces only. He accomplished the feat by cutting the board as shown by the dotted lines in the annexed Fig. 5, and joining them over the hole in the floor in the manner shown in Fig. 6.
Fig. 5.—Carpenter's Puzzle—The Problem.
Fig. 6.—Carpenter's Puzzle—The Solution.
THE DIVIDED FARM.
This is a still more complicated puzzle of the same description. It is the last of the sort we shall give, but many more of a like character may be constructed. A Frenchman died leaving five sons, among whom he had expressed a wish to divide his farm, on which ten trees grew, so that they all might live together in the house (represented by the dark square in the diagrams), and so that each might have an equal share of land, of a similar shape, each share having two trees growing upon it. Fig. 7 shows the land before it was divided; the lines in Fig. 8 show how the fences were put up when the old man's wish had been carried out.