THE MAGIC SQUARE. 



ical creation. If however it is a severe test of patience to form a 

 knight-problem by experiment, it stands to reason that it is a still 

 severer trial to effect at the same time the addition-al result that the 

 64 numbers which form the knight-problem shall also form a magic 

 square. 



This trial of endurance was undertaken several decades ago, by 

 a pensioned Moravian officer named Wenzelides, who was spending 

 the last days of his life in the country. After a series of trials which 

 lasted years he finally succeeded in so inscribing in the 64 squares 

 of the chess-board the numbers from i to 64 that successive num- 

 bers, as well also as the numbers 64 and i, were always removed 

 from one another in distance and direction by the move of a knight, 

 and that in addition thereto the summation of the horizontal and the 

 vertical rows always gave the same sum 260. Ultimately he dis- 

 covered several squares of this description, which were published in 

 the Berlin Chess Journal. One of these is here appended : 



Fig. 30. 



The move of the knight and the equality of the summation of 

 the horizontal and vertical rows, therefore, are the facts to be noted 

 here. The diagonal rows do not give the sum 260. Perhaps some 

 one among our readers who possesses the time and patience will be 

 tempted to outdo Wenzelides, and to devise a numeral knight-prob- 

 lem of this kind which will give 260 not only in the horizontal and 

 vertical but also in the two diagonal rows. 



