30 FORESTRY OF NORWAY. 
way was constructed, sails to Lillehammer, at the northern 
extremity of the lake. The Miosen is a long, narrow lake, 
not unlike our Windermere, but on a larger scale; being 
some seventy miles in length. The mountains that form 
its basin rise to a height of about 2000 feet at their visible 
summits; their form is not remarkable, but their sides, 
sloping down to the lake, are covered with rich emerald 
verdure, rivalling, if not excelling, our own green fields, 
and even those of Ireland. These slopes are backed by 
fine woods of birch and mountain ash, and dotted about 
them are the wooden farm-houses. Altogether, the Miosen 
is a beautiful lake, though not exciting rapture. About half 
way on the lake. is the site of the ancient town of Stor- 
Hammer—Stérr signifying large, and Hammer the same 
as our ham or. hamlet. The ruins of its old cathedral 
remain, and near it, or, I believe, including it, is the farm 
of George P. Bidder, once the famous calculating boy,* and 
* From time to time there haye appeared such prodigies of boys who seemed not to 
calculate but to see, as many men see, that 1 and 1 are 2, that 2 and 3 are 5, what are 
the sums and products of numbers greater far than these. Such was Jididiah Buxton,. 
such was Terah Colburn. The latter has left us a memoir of his life and achievements. 
On one occasion he was asked to name the square of 999,999, which he stated to be 
999,998,000,001. He multiplied this by 49 and the product by the same number, and 
the total result he then multiplied by 25, the two latter operations being comparatively 
simple from the proportions which 25 and 50 bear to 100, He raised with ease the figure 
8 to the sixteenth power. He named the squares of 244,999,755 and 1,224,998,775. He 
instantly named the factors 941 and 263, which would produce 247,488. He could dis- 
cover prime bers al it as soon as d. In five, ds he calculated the cube 
root of 413,993,348,677.' But he admits that George Bidder was even more remarkable 
in some ways than he was; he could not extract roots or find factors with so much easo 
and rapidity as he, but he was more at home in obstruse calculations. 
At three years of age George Bidder answered wonderful questions about the nails in 
a horse's four shoes, At eight, though he knew nothing of the theory of ciphering, he 
could answer almost instantaneously how many farthings there were in £868,464,121: 
An octogenarian who saw these stat its in the Spect bseq ly sent to that 
ore the following t of his recollecti of two interviews which he had with 
im when Bidder was a little boy :—‘In the autumn of the year 1814, I was readin 
with a private tutor, the Curate of Wellington, Somersetshire, when a Mr Bidder called 
upon him to exhibit the calculating power of his little boy, then about eight years old, who 
could neither read nor write. On this occasion he displayed great facility in the mental- 
handling of numbers, multiplying readily and correctly two figures by two, but failing 
in attempting numbers of three figures. My tutor, a Cambridge man, Fellow of his 
college, strongly recommended the father not to carry his son about the country, but to 
have him properly trained at school. This advice was not taken, for about two years 
after he was brought by his father to Cambridge, and his faculty of mental calculation 
tested by several able mathematical men. I was present at the examination, and began 
it with a sum in simple addition, two rows, with twelve figures in each row. The boy 
gave the correct answer immediately, Various questions, then, of considerable 
ifficulty, involving large numbers, were proposed to him, all of which he answered 
promptly and accurately. These must have occupied more than an hour. There wa | 
