Enigmata

Usage examples of puzzles.

These puzzles usually dealt in some way or other with his accumulated treasure, and were propounded by him solely in order that he might have the pleasure of solving them himself.

Though I have included a few old puzzles that have interested the world for generations, where I felt that there was something new to be said about them, the problems are in the main original.

Even those puzzles that we have no way of attacking except by haphazard attempts can be brought under a method of what has been called "glorified trial"—a system of shortening our labours by avoiding or eliminating what our reason tells us is useless.

If there were no puzzles to solve, there would be no questions to ask.

The reader is left to make his own choice and determine which puzzles are capable of being solved by him on purely arithmetical lines.

As for puzzles in relationship or kinship, it is quite curious how bewildering many people find these things.

In fact, I will confide to my readers that this is just how ideas for puzzles arise.

This will be found when the reader comes to consider the following puzzles, though they are not arranged in strict order of difficulty.

But there can be no doubt that in the case of certain geometrical problems, notably dissection or superposition puzzles, the æsthetic faculty in man contributes to the delight.

I have, therefore, thought it well to keep these dissection puzzles distinct from the geometrical problems on more general lines.

Whether this was so or not, it is certain that all good dissection puzzles (for the nursery type of jig-saw puzzle, which merely consists in cutting up a picture into pieces to be put together again, is not worthy of serious consideration) are really based on geometrical laws.

But it is generally understood that in dissection puzzles you are allowed to turn pieces over unless it is distinctly stated that you may not do so.

I have often made puzzles, too, in which the diagram has a small repeated pattern, and the pieces have then so to be cut that not only is there no turning over, but the pattern has to be matched, which cannot be done if the pieces are turned round, even with the proper side uppermost.

If you cut out the puzzles in paper with scissors, or in cardboard with a penknife, no material is lost.

In the case of most puzzles this slight loss is not sufficient to be appreciable, if the puzzle is cut out on a large scale, but there have been instances where I have found it desirable to draw and cut out each part separately—not from one diagram—in order to produce a perfect result.