Fig. 148.—Maze Toy by H. Bridge.
(After Patent Specification.)
It now remains for some inventor of Einsteinian proclivities to devise one in several dimensions!
An interesting little study in what one might call "Labyrinth Psychology" was carried out by an Austrian biologist in connection with his researches on "The Evolution of Efficiency in the Animal Kingdom," in 1917. This was a series of experiments to test the efficiency of animals in learning to thread a labyrinth in search of food. [Figs. 149, 150 and 151] show three stages in the education of a rat in this respect, the dotted line representing the track followed by the animal from the entrance to the food-containing centre of a simple form of labyrinth.
Figs. 149, 150 and 151.—Path of Rat in Labyrinth; three stages. (Szymanski.)
Some sort of game, known as "Labyrinthe," enjoyed a passing favour in France in the eighteenth century. An advertisement of May 8, 1869, referring to one offered for sale by a Parisian upholsterer named Lechevin, describes it as "un jeu de labyrinthe a 11 cases doré d'or moulu, avec tableau dans chaque case," but this does not tell us much concerning the nature of the pastime.
A card game of similar name was played in this country half a century ago; it was a kind of bezique.
In France the name "Labyrinthe" is also given to a children's game in which the majority of the players hold hands so as to form a chain of arches which are threaded by two runners called respectively le tisserand and la navette—"the weaver" and "the shuttle."
A visitor to the Latin Convent on the summit of Mount Carmel, Palestine, in 1874, described a "verbal labyrinth" which he saw displayed on a board hanging on the wall of an inner staircase. It was called "The Labyrinth of St. Bernard," and consisted of a number of words or short phrases arranged in a square, as shown below. By selecting the words in the proper order five maxims are obtained "by which man may live well." The first of these maxims, commencing with the word at the foot of the left-hand column, is: Noli dicere omnia quae scis quia qui dicit omnia quae scit saepe audit quod non vult.
The remaining four injunctions may be read by similarly utilising the words in the bottom row with those in the second, third, fourth, and fifth rows respectively: