322 Extraordinary talent for Calculation^ <§*c. 



Question. How have you done it? Answer. 123 by 100 

 makes 12300; 123 by 20 makes 2460 ; 123 by 3 makes 369. 

 These numbers added together make 15129. 



This is the known method of decomposing the number ac- 

 cording to the value of the figures. The algebraic form 

 wouldbe,«(7w+w+p) = 123 (100-1-20 + 3.) Question. In 

 three successive attacks, there perished at first a fourth, then 

 a fifth, then a sixth of the assailants, who were reduced to 138 

 men. We ask what was their number at the moment of the at- 

 tack ? Answer. There were 360. Question. How have 

 you found this number ? Anszver. If there had been 60, there 

 would have remained 23 ; but 23 is the sixth part of 138, con- 

 sequently the number of the assailants ought to be 6 times 60, 

 or 360. Question. But how have you supposed at first the 

 number 60, and not 50 or 70. Answer. Because 50 and 70 

 are neither divisible by 4 nor by 6. 



We find here the hypothetical method, and see that the 

 child followed the usual rule to avoid the fractions. 



Signor Cacciatore closed the examination by the following 

 reflections: This child, scarcely seven years old, without in- 

 struction, without acquired methods, discovers with perfect ex- 

 actness the relations of numbers, and creates at the same time, 

 for each question, the method of calculation which brings him 

 best to the solution. Sometimes, however, he takes the long- 

 est way in the calculation ; but then it appears still more as- 

 tonishing, by the incredible rapidity with which he gets over it, 

 as by tJie confidence which he preserves in the labyrinth of 

 figures, never mistaking nor forgetting any of the numbers 

 that he must form, retain, decompose, and combine, and arriving 

 always at the exact solution. A talent so extraordinary de- 

 serves surely to be developed and encouraged. The Govern- 

 ment is about to interest itself in the fate of this child, and to 

 grant the necessary means in order to give him a complete edu- 

 cation suitable to his surprising powers. — Antologia di Firenze 

 Av. 1829. 



