♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



game even Eimpler than before, while, as far as I am a judge, it is 

 made even more exciting. We mi^lH call this way of playing the 

 game, " Republican Draughts," because I do awav with Kings — 

 there are only men. 



The following might be called the "claim" of the method, if 

 this were a patent : — 



" Whenever a man reaches the last file of squares, he remains 

 qniescent. For his next move, or for any subsequent move, the 

 owner of the man may remove any one of his adversary's men from 

 the board, and place the man that has reached the last file on the 

 square thus vacated." 



This is a much more terrible privilege than mere coronation. 

 The game becomes a very intense affair in consequence. It will be 

 observed that here the men are always moving forwards, except 

 when " removing " one of the adversary's men this way. Hence 

 the same position can never occur twice in one game, and thus no 

 •_'ame can be drawn. Hence white has a slight advantage. 

 " I now give an example. Suppose White's men are at 3, 23, 25, 

 28, 29, 30, 32, and Black's at 3, 4, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14 (Black's men 

 orginally having been on squares from 1 to 12, White's on squares 

 from 21 to 32). Suppose White to play. In the ordinary course 

 of the game the White man at 2 would be a King. But not so 

 here. White removes any one of Black's men from the board that 

 he pleases, and stations his own man from 2 on the vacated square. 

 Thus, in the example, White might remove Black's man at 13 or 

 14, and his move would be written 2-13 or 2-14. I would not 

 allow White to take off Black's back men— that is, to play 2-3 or 

 2-4, for that would allow White to exercise the same operation 

 several times till he had cleared off all Black's back men, and this 

 would be too great an advantage. Let the rule be, any man but 

 the back. I need hardly remark that White's man, having thus 

 leapt back, can then resume its march forwards, and is just like 

 any other of White's men. I trust the above explanation will be 

 intelligible, and that all your draught-playing readers will consider 

 the matter. I think if two of them were to play a game over in 

 this manner they would be pleased. I hope some result will follow 



There is another matter I would like to suggest, and that is con- 

 cerning the dranght-board. Why should we be bound to the chess- 

 board wiih its paltry thirty-two "squares. The Polish draught-board 

 is better; but I wonder that no one has thought of the medium 

 between these— a board with eighty-one squares, the men moving 

 on forty-one of these. In symmetry and elegance it is far beyond 

 either. This will be seen 'by constructing a diagram of it, and 

 numbering the squares, when it will be found that all the diagonals 

 in one direction are in arithmetical progressions, with iive as 

 common difference, and all in the other in progressions of four. 

 This is much better than the common board, where the differences 

 are three, four, or five in either direction. For the ordinary way 

 of playing draughts, this would offer an advantage in that there 

 would be fewer drawn games, because there are no double corners, 

 and, for my new way, it would give more variety of position. After 

 all, any one can make himself a draught-board with some mill- 

 board and white paper. As, however, there can be no drawn games 

 in my way, it would not be of so much consequence to have a 

 board without double corners. However, this is quite a secondary 



I trust that this way of playing draughts will attract the atten- 

 tion of some leading draught-players ; perhaps some of their friends 

 may see this paper, and draw their attention to this article. 



(Edi 



s Eex. 



" MUSC-F. TOLITANTES." 



[1857]— Keferring to letter No. 1815, I find in Dr. Smee's book, 

 " Vision in Health and Disease," mention made of " false spots 

 (and chains), which move as the eye moves, and which remain 

 stationary when the eye is fixed steadfastly on an object." It is 

 there suggested that the spots, Ac, always exist on the same 

 place of the retina, but this is a mistake. In my own case, 

 although the general form of the chain is preserved, it occasionally 

 shifts its position in the field of view. 



My object in writing is to point out to Mr. Thomas that the 

 size of this image floating in the hnmour of the eye varies in the 

 same way as ocular spectra. If my eye is focussed for parallel 

 rays the appearance is at its largest, while the more divergent the 

 rays become the smaller and sharper is the image. 



Does Mr. Thomas's explanation in regard to ocniar spectra here 

 apply ? Interested. 



[The effect spoken of by our correspondent is that too-familiar 

 one to the tired observer with the telescope known as " M uscae 

 volitantes." They do, of coarse, shift in the field of vision. They 

 are the Bhadows of motes in the vitreous humour of the eye 

 thrown on the retina. Obviously, as their angular diameter 



jnstant they must seem monstrously larger whei 

 1 a very distant object, than they do whe" """' 

 ling only a foot or two from the eye. — Ed.] 



TO MAKE I\ HIMSELF OF TWAIN'. 

 [I85S] — As many of yonr readers will, I feel sure, consider it 

 impossible that Mr. Clemens or Mark Twain could have fallen into 

 the mistake about " the full moon all the voyage," mentioned in 

 Gossip in Knowledge of July 17, 1 send you a copy of some notes 

 I took, intended for the facetiae columns in the paper we tried to 

 start on board a vessel in which I returned from Australia last 



Astronomy. A gentleman who has gone into the calculatiODS 

 (thoroughly, he says,) assures me we ought to have a full moon 

 nearly all the way home, if we maintain the rate we are going at. 



There was a lunar rainbow visible on the 12th inst. I did not 

 see it myself, but two or three of the passengers have kindly given 

 me the result of their observations. According to one, the bow- 

 was complete ; according to another, but a very small portion wag 

 visible. What struck one observer was the peculiar whiteness of 

 the bow, while another distinctly saw seven colours. There waa 

 some doubt as to the position of the moon at the time ; some say it 

 had set, others that it was behind a thick bank of clouds, others 

 again that it was shining brightly. 



I remember once being flatly contradicted by a so-called well- 

 visible wherever the moon was above the horizon at the time of 

 the eclipse, allowing for clouds of course. J. W. Alb 



OBSCURE MEMORY. 



[1859] — I wrote stupidly about " Arthur's bosom"; corrected 

 in K. I at once remembered the passage in Henry V., not read 

 since forty years. Why did I not remember it before ? 



Reading (in O. Feuillet's Histoire de Sibylle) of a child who 

 cried for a star, and at last only slept when given a bright object 

 to hold in her hand, (mendaciously warranted a star new-caught) 

 I was seized with a desire to read a packet of letters a century old 

 I believed I had not read. There seemed no conceivable reason for 

 the thought of them coming into my mind. But it was so strong 

 that I hunted them up. What was my surprise to find one sealed 

 with arms whereof the crest was a demi-woman holding up a star 

 in one hand ! I know not to whom the coat belonged ; to some 

 Austrian brother -officer of a connexion of mine, writing for him 

 (wounded). But I found I had read the letters, a year before. 

 Hence it was obscure memory which drove me to th 



" COCK-SURE." 



[18C0]— The word " cock-sure" appears to be a favourite with 

 Knowledge at present. Its occurrence in Shakespeare has been 

 pointed out by Mr. Proctor. 



Another example of its use by an English classical author may be 

 worth noting. 



In Act iv.of Dryden's "Sir Martin Mar- AH" (founded npon 

 Moliere's " L'Etourdi") the following passage is to be found: — 

 " Nothing vexes me, but that I had made my game cock-sure, and 

 then to be backgammoned." C. F. Clabke. 



LETTERS RECEIVED AND SHORT ANSWERS. 



T. C. Clabke. No, not for celestial purposes. The opini 

 which you speak was merelv of the instrument as adapted foi 

 terrestrial nse. Write to W." Watson A- Sous, 313, High Holbom, 

 London, W.C., or to J. Lancaster & Son, opticians, Birminghai 

 saying exactly what you want. Please note, too, the paragraph in 

 capital letters which concludes those heading the correspondence 

 columns.— N. J. 0. H. Walker gives " incidental need " 



'andB 

 so with o 



■y befor. 



Standard Lexicographers. Henct 

 the pnrase " 1 had occasion to go" is no mere vulgar provin- 

 cialism, but pure grammatical English. — Knowledge. The nearesi 

 approach to a classical symbolic representation of knowledge was 

 Minerva, who was regarded as the goddess of wisdom and learn- 

 ing.— F. W. H. You still sail a little too near the wind. Tl 

 volting cant of such productions as that of " C has. Peace turned 

 Believer," is positively enough to encourage systematic violation oi 

 the whole of the Ten Commandments, though.— P. C. B. Will b< 

 handed to " Five of Clabs" on his return.— G. G. G. The lines you 

 quote are entirely new to me. Did yon find them as a heading to a 



