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 ORIGAMI, ELEUSIS, AND THE SOMA CUBE

For 25 of his 90 years, Martin Gard-

ner wrote “Mathematical Games and
Recreations,” a monthly column for
Scientific American magazine. These
columns have inspired hundreds of
thousands of readers to delve more
deeply into the large world of math-
ematics. He has also made signifi-
cant contributions to magic, philos-
ophy, debunking pseudoscience, and
children’s literature. He has produced
more than 60 books, including many
best sellers, most of which are still
in print. His Annotated Alice has sold
more than a million copies. He continues to write a regular column for
the Skeptical Inquirer magazine. (The photograph is of the author in
1959.)
 THE NEW MARTIN GARDNER MATHEMATICAL LIBRARY

Editorial Board
Donald J. Albers, Menlo College
Gerald L. Alexanderson, Santa Clara University
John H. Conway, F. R. S., Princeton University
Richard K. Guy, University of Calgary
Harold R. Jacobs
Donald E. Knuth, Stanford University
Peter L. Renz

From 1957 through 1986 Martin Gardner wrote the “Mathematical

Games” columns for Scientific American that are the basis for these
books. Scientific American editor Dennis Flanagan noted that this
column contributed substantially to the success of the magazine. The
exchanges between Martin Gardner and his readers gave life to these
columns and books. These exchanges have continued and the impact
of the columns and books has grown. These new editions give Martin
Gardner the chance to bring readers up to date on newer twists on old
puzzles and games, on new explanations and proofs, and on links to
recent developments and discoveries. Illustrations have been added
and existing ones improved, and the bibliographies have been greatly
expanded throughout.

1. Hexaflexagons, Probability Paradoxes, and the Tower of Hanoi:

Martin Gardner’s First Book of Mathematical Puzzles and Games
2. Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube: Martin Gardner’s
Mathematical Diversions
3. Sphere Packing, Lewis Carroll, and Reversi: Martin Gardner’s New
Mathematical Diversions
4. Knots and Borromean Rings, Rep-Tiles, and Eight Queens: Martin
Gardner’s Unexpected Hanging
5. Klein Bottles, Op-Art, and Sliding-Block Puzzles: More of Martin
Gardner’s Mathematical Games
6. Sprouts, Hypercubes, and Superellipses: Martin Gardner’s
Mathematical Carnival
 7. Nothing and Everything, Polyominoes, and Game Theory: Martin
Gardner’s Mathematical Magic Show
8. Random Walks, Hyperspheres, and Palindromes: Martin Gardner’s
Mathematical Circus
9. Words, Numbers, and Combinatorics: Martin Gardner on the Trail
of Dr. Matrix
10. Wheels, Life, and Knotted Molecules: Martin Gardner’s
Mathematical Amusements
11. Knotted Doughnuts, Napier’s Bones, and Gray Codes: Martin
Gardner’s Mathematical Entertainments
12. Tangrams, Tilings, and Time Travel: Martin Gardner’s
Mathematical Bewilderments
13. Penrose Tiles, Trapdoor Ciphers, and the Oulipo: Martin Gardner’s
Mathematical Tour
14. Fractal Music, Hypercards, and Chaitin’s Omega: Martin Gardner’s
Mathematical Recreations
15. The Last Recreations: Hydras, Eggs, and Other Mathematical
Mystifications: Martin Gardner’s Last Mathematical Recreations
Origami, Eleusis, and the
Soma Cube

MARTIN GARDNER’S MATHEMATICAL

DIVERSIONS

Martin Gardner

The Mathematical Association of America

 cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi

Cambridge University Press

32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521735247

c Mathematical Association of America 2008

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2008

First edition published as The 2nd SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN Book of Mathematical

Puzzles & Diversions, Simon and Schuster, 1961

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Gardner, Martin, 1914–
Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma cube : Martin Gardner’s mathematical
diversions / Martin Gardner.
p. cm. – (The new Martin Gardner mathematical library)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-75610-5 (hardback)
1. Mathematical recreations. I. Title. II. Series.
QA95.G2975 2008
793.74–dc22 2008012534

ISBN 978-0-521-75610-5 hardback

ISBN 978-0-521-73524-7 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for

the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such
Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

Acknowledgments page viii

Introduction ix

1 The Five Platonic Solids 1

2 Tetraflexagons 11
3 Henry Ernest Dudeney: England’s Greatest Puzzlist 20
4 Digital Roots 32
5 Nine Problems 39
6 The Soma Cube 51
7 Recreational Topology 66
8 Phi: The Golden Ratio 76
9 The Monkey and the Coconuts 91
10 Mazes 98
11 Recreational Logic 106
12 Magic Squares 117
13 James Hugh Riley Shows, Inc. 129
14 Nine More Problems 139
15 Eleusis: The Induction Game 151
16 Origami 160
17 Squaring the Square 173
18 Mechanical Puzzles 194
19 Probability and Ambiguity 204
20 The Mysterious Dr. Matrix 218

Index 229

vii
 Acknowledgments

Martin Gardner thanks Scientific American for allowing reuse of

material from his columns in that magazine, material copyright


c 1958 (Chapters 1–7, 9, 17), 1959 (Chapters 8, 10–16, 18, 19), and
1960 (Chapter 20) by Scientific American, Inc. He also thanks the
artists who contributed to the success of these columns and books
for allowing reuse of their work: James D. Egelson (via heirs Jan and
Nicholas Egelson), Irving Geis (via heir Sandy Geis), Harold Jacobs,
Amy Kasai, Alex Semenoick, and Bunji Tagawa (via Donald Garber
for the Tagawa Estate). Artists’ names are cited where these were
known. All rights other than use in connection with these materi-
als lie with the original artists.
Photograph of Bernardino Luini, “Boy with a Toy,” Elton Hall Col-
lection is reproduced from “Gibeciere” vol. 1, no. 1 and used by per-
mission. Photograph in Figure 51, courtesy of National Gallery of
Art, copyright the Salvador Dali estate, is used by permission. Pho-
tograph of Albrecht Durer’s Melancolia I is courtesy of Owen Gin-
gerich. Photograph in figure Y is courtesy of Ed Vogel.

viii
 Introduction

Since the appearance of the first Scientific American Book of Math-

ematical Puzzles & Diversions, in 1959, popular interest in recre-
ational mathematics has continued to increase. Many new puzzle
books have been printed, old puzzle books have been reprinted, kits
of recreational math materials are on the market, a new topological
game (see Chapter 7) has caught the fancy of the country’s young-
sters, and an excellent little magazine called Recreational Mathe-
matics has been started by Joseph Madachy, a research chemist
in Idaho Falls. Chessmen – those intellectual status symbols – are
jumping all over the place, from TV commercials and magazine
advertisements to Al Horowitz’s lively chess corner in The Saturday
Review and the knight on Paladin’s holster and have-gun-will-travel
card.
This pleasant trend is not confined to the United States. A clas-
sic four-volume French work, Récréations Mathématiques, by Edu-
ouard Lucas, has been reissued in France in paperback. Thomas H.
O’Beirne, a Glasgow mathematician, is writing a splendid puzzle
column in a British science journal. A handsome 575-page collec-
tion of puzzles, assembled by mathematics teacher Boris Kordem-
ski, is selling in Russian and Ukrainian editions. It is all, of course,
part of a worldwide boom in math – in turn a reflection of the in-
creasing demand for skilled mathematicians to meet the incredible
needs of the new triple age of the atom, spaceship, and computer.
Computers are not replacing mathematicians; they are breed-
ing them. It may take a computer less than 20 seconds to solve
a thorny problem, but it may have taken a group of mathemati-
cians many months to program the problem. In addition, sci-
entific research is becoming more and more dependent on the

ix
x Introduction

mathematician for important breakthroughs in theory. The rela-

tivity revolution, remember, was the work of a man who had no
experience in the laboratory. At the moment, atomic scientists are
thoroughly befuddled by the preposterous properties of some 30
different fundamental particles, “a vast jumble of odd dimension-
less numbers,” as J. Robert Oppenheimer has described them,
“none of them understandable or derivable, all with an insulting
lack of obvious meaning.” One of these days a great creative math-
ematician, sitting alone and scribbling on a piece of paper, or shav-
ing, or taking his family on a picnic, will experience a flash of insight.
The particles will spin into their appointed places, rank on rank, in
a beautiful pattern of unalterable law. At least, that is what the par-
ticle physicists hope will happen. Of course the great puzzle solver
will draw on laboratory data, but the chances are that he will be, like
Einstein, primarily a mathematician.
Not only in the physical sciences is mathematics battering down
locked doors. The biological sciences, psychology, and the social sci-
ences are beginning to reel under the invasion of mathematicians
armed with strange new statistical techniques for designing exper-
iments, analyzing data, and predicting probable results. It may still
be true that if the president of the United States asks three economic
advisers to study an important question, they will report back with
four different opinions, but it is no longer absurd to imagine a dis-
tant day when economic disagreements can be settled by mathe-
matics in a way that is not subject to the usual dismal disputes.
In the cold light of modern economic theory, the conflict between
socialism and capitalism is rapidly becoming, as Arthur Koestler
has put it, as naı̈ve and sterile as the wars in Lilliput over the two
ways to break an egg. (I speak only of the economic debate; the con-
flict between democracy and totalitarianism has nothing to do with
mathematics.)
But those are weighty matters, and this is only a book of amuse-
ments. If it has any serious purpose at all, it is to stimulate popular
interest in mathematics. Such stimulation is surely desirable, if for
no other reason than to help the layman understand what the sci-
entists are up to. And they are up to plenty.
I would like to express again my gratitude to the publisher, edi-
tors, and staff of Scientific American, the magazine in which these
 Introduction xi

chapters first appeared; to my wife for assistance in many ways;

and to the hundreds of friendly readers who continue to correct my
errors and suggest new material. I would like also to thank, for her
expert help in preparing the manuscript, Nina Bourne of Simon and
Schuster.
Martin Gardner
 CHAPTER ONE

The Five Platonic Solids

a regular polygon is a plane figure bounded by straight lines, with

equal sides and equal interior angles. There is of course an infinite
number of such figures. In three dimensions the analog of the reg-
ular polygon is the regular polyhedron: a solid bounded by regular
polygons, with congruent faces and congruent interior angles at its
corners. One might suppose that these forms are also infinite, but in
fact they are, as Lewis Carroll once expressed it, “provokingly few in
number.” There are only five regular convex solids: the regular tetra-
hedron, hexahedron (cube), octahedron, dodecahedron, and icosa-
hedron (see Figure 1).
The first systematic study of the five regular solids appears to
have been made by the ancient Pythagoreans. They believed that
the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, and icosahedron respectively
underlay the structure of the traditional four elements: fire, earth,
air, and water. The dodecahedron was obscurely identified with the
entire universe. Because these notions were elaborated in Plato’s
Timaeus, the regular polyhedrons came to be known as the Platonic
solids. The beauty and fascinating mathematical properties of these
five forms haunted scholars from the time of Plato through the
Renaissance. The analysis of the Platonic solids provides the cli-
mactic final book of Euclid’s Elements. Johannes Kepler believed
throughout his life that the orbits of the six planets known in his
day could be obtained by nesting the five solids in a certain order
within the orbit of Saturn. Today the mathematician no longer views
the Platonic solids with mystical reverence, but their rotations are
studied in connection with group theory, and they continue to play
a colorful role in recreational mathematics. Here we shall quickly
examine a few diversions in which they are involved.

1
2 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

Figure 1. The five Platonic solids. The cube and octahedron are “duals” in the
sense that if the centers of all pairs of adjacent faces on one are connected by
straight lines, the lines form the edges of the other. The dodecahedron and icosa-
hedron are dually related in the same way. The tetrahedron is its own dual. (Artist:
Bunji Tagawa)
 The Five Platonic Solids 3

Figure 2. How a sealed envelope can be cut for folding into a tetrahedron. (Artist:
Bunji Tagawa)

There are four different ways in which a sealed envelope can

be cut and folded into a tetrahedron. The following is perhaps
the simplest. Draw an equilateral triangle on both sides of one
end of an envelope (see Figure 2). Then cut through both layers
of the envelope as indicated by the broken line and discard the
right-hand piece. By creasing the paper along the sides of the front
and back triangles, points A and B are brought together to form the
trahedron. shows the pattern for a tantalizing little puzzle currently
marketed in plastic. You can make the puzzle yourself by cutting two
such patterns out of heavy paper. (All the line segments except the
longer one have the same length.) Fold each pattern along the lines
and tape the edges to make the solid shown. Now try to fit the two
solids together to make a tetrahedron. A mathematician I know likes
to annoy his friends with a practical joke based on this puzzle. He
bought two sets of the plastic pieces so that he could keep a third
piece concealed in his hand. He displays a tetrahedron on the table,
then knocks it over with his hand and at the same time releases the
concealed piece. Naturally his friends do not succeed in forming the
tetrahedron out of the three pieces.
Concerning the cube, I shall mention only an electrical puzzle
and the surprising fact that a cube can be passed through a hole
in a smaller cube. If you will hold a cube so that one corner points
directly toward you, the edges outlining a hexagon, you will see at
4 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

Figure 3. A pattern (left) that can be folded into a solid (right), two of which make
a tetrahedron. (Artist: Bunji Tagawa)

once that there is ample space for a square hole that can be slightly
larger than the face of the cube itself. The electrical puzzle involves
the network depicted in Figure 4. If each edge of the cube has a resis-
tance of one ohm, what is the resistance of the entire structure when
current flows from A to B? Electrical engineers have been known to
produce pages of computations on this problem, though it yields
easily to the proper insight.
All five Platonic solids have been used as dice. Next to the cube
the octahedron seems to have been the most popular. The pattern
shown in Figure 5, its faces numbered as indicated, will fold into a
neat octahedron whose open edges can be closed with transparent

Figure 4. An electrical-network puzzle. (Artist: Bunji Tagawa)

 The Five Platonic Solids 5

Figure 5. A strip to make an octahedral die. (Artist: Bunji Tagawa)

tape. The opposite sides of this die, as in the familiar cubical dice,
total seven. Moreover, a pleasant little mind-reading stunt is made
possible by this arrangement of digits. Ask someone to think of a
number from 0 to 7 inclusive. Hold up the octahedron so that he
sees only the faces 1, 3, 5, and 7, and ask him if he sees his chosen
number. If he says “Yes,” this answer has a key value of 1. Turn the
solid so that he sees faces 2, 3, 6, and 7, and ask the question again.
This time “Yes” has the value of 2. The final question is asked with
the solid turned so that he sees 4, 5, 6, and 7. Here a “Yes” answer
has the value of 4. If you now total the values of his three answers
you obtain the chosen number, a fact that should be easily explained
by anyone familiar with the binary system. To facilitate finding the
three positions in which you must hold the solid, simply mark in
some way the three corners that must be pointed toward you as you
face the spectator.
There are other interesting ways of numbering the faces of an
octahedral die. It is possible, for example, to arrange the digits 1
through 8 in such a manner that the total of the four faces around
each corner is a constant. The constant must be 18, but there are
three distinct ways (not counting rotations and reflections) in which
the faces can be numbered in this fashion.
An elegant way to construct a dodecahedron is explained in
Hugo Steinhaus’s book Mathematical Snapshots. Cut from heavy
cardboard two patterns like the one pictured at left in Figure 6.
The pentagons should be about an inch on a side. Score the out-
line of each center pentagon with the point of a knife so that the
pentagon flaps fold easily in one direction. Place the patterns
together as shown at right in the illustration so that the flaps of each
pattern fold toward the others. Weave a rubber band alternately over
and under the projecting ends, keeping the patterns pressed flat.
6 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

Figure 6. Two identical patterns are fastened together with a rubber band to
make a pop-up dodecahedron. (Artist: Bunji Tagawa)

When you release the pressure, the dodecahedron will spring magi-
cally into shape.
If the faces of this model are colored, a single color to each face,
what is the minimum number of colors needed to make sure that
no edge has the same color on both sides? The answer is four, and
it is not difficult to discover the four different ways that the col-
ors can be arranged (two are mirror images of the other two). The
tetrahedron also requires four colors, there being two arrangements,
one a reflection of the other. The cube needs three colors and the
octahedron two, each having only one possible arrangement. The
icosahedron calls for three colors; here there are no less than 144
different patterns, only six of which are identical with their mirror
images.
If a fly were to walk along the 12 edges of an icosahedron, travers-
ing each edge at least once, what is the shortest distance it could
travel? The fly need not return to its starting point, and it would be
necessary for it to go over some edges twice. (Only the octahedron’s
edges can be traversed without retracing.) A plane projection of the
icosahedron (Figure 7) may be used in working on this problem, but
one must remember that each edge is one unit in length. (I have
been unable to resist concealing a laconic Christmas greeting in the
 The Five Platonic Solids 7

Figure 7. A plane projection of an icosahedron. (Artist: Bunji Tagawa)

way the corners of this diagram are labeled. It is not necessary to

solve the problem in order to find it.)
In view of the fact that cranks persist in trying to trisect the angle
and square the circle long after these feats have been proved impos-
sible, why has there been no comparable effort to find more than
five regular polyhedrons? One reason is that it is quite easy to “see”
that no more are possible. The following simple proof goes back to
Euclid.
A corner of a polyhedron must have at least three faces. Con-
sider the simplest face: an equilateral triangle. We can form a cor-
ner by putting together three, four, or five such triangles. Beyond
five, the angles total 360 degrees or more and therefore cannot form
a corner. We thus have three possible ways to construct a regular
convex solid with triangular faces. Three and only three squares
will similarly form a corner, indicating the possibility of a regular
solid with square faces. The same reasoning yields one possibility
with three pentagons at each corner. We cannot go beyond the pen-
tagon, because when we put three hexagons together at a corner,
they equal 360 degrees.
This argument does not prove that five regular solids can be
constructed, but it does show clearly that no more than five are
8 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

possible. More sophisticated arguments establish that there are six

regular polytopes, as they are called, in four-dimensional space.
Curiously, in every space of more than four dimensions there are
only three regular polytopes: analogs of the tetrahedron, cube, and
octahedron.
A moral may be lurking here. There is a very real sense in which
mathematics limits the kinds of structures that can exist in nature.
It is not possible, for example, that beings in another galaxy gam-
ble with dice that are regular convex polyhedra of a shape unknown
to us. Some theologians have been so bold as to contend that not
even God himself could construct a sixth Platonic solid in three-
dimensional space. In similar fashion, geometry imposes unbreak-
able limits on the varieties of crystal growth. Some day physicists
may even discover mathematical limitations to the number of fun-
damental particles and basic laws. No one of course has any notion
of how mathematics may, if indeed it does, restrict the nature of
structures that can be called “alive.” It is conceivable, for example,
that the properties of carbon compounds are absolutely essential
for life. In any case, as humanity braces itself for the shock of finding
life on other planets, the Platonic solids serve as ancient reminders
that there may be fewer things on Mars and Venus than are dreamt
of in our philosophy.

ANSWERS

The total resistance of the cubical network is 5/6 ohm. If the three
corners closest to A are short-circuited together, and the same is
done with the three corners closest to B, no current will flow in the
two triangles of short circuits because each connects equipotential
points. It is now easy to see that there are three one-ohm resistors
in parallel between A and the nearest triangle (resistance 1/3 ohm),
six in parallel between the triangles (1/6 ohm), and three in parallel
between the second triangle and B (1/3 ohm), making a total resis-
tance of 5/6 ohm.
C. W. Trigg, discussing the cubical-network problem in the
November–December 1960 issue of Mathematics Magazine, points
out that a solution for it may be found in Magnetism and Electricity,
by E. E. Brooks and A. W. Poyser, 1920. The problem and the method
 The Five Platonic Solids 9

of solving it can be easily extended to networks in the form of the

other four Platonic solids.
The three ways to number the faces of an octahedron so that the
total around each corner is 18 are 6, 7, 2, 3 clockwise (or counter-
clockwise) around one corner, and 1, 4, 5, 8 around the opposite
corner (6 adjacent to 1, 7 to 4, and so on); 1, 7, 2, 8 and 4, 6, 3, 5; and
4, 7, 2, 5 and 6, 1, 8, 3. See W. W. Rouse Ball’s Mathematical Recre-
ations and Essays, Chapter 7, for a simple proof that the octahedron
is the only one of the five solids whose faces can be numbered so
that there is a constant sum at each corner.
The shortest distance the fly can walk to cover all edges of an
icosahedron is 35 units. By erasing five edges of the solid (for exam-
ple, edges FM, BE, JA, ID, and HC) we are left with a network that
has only two points, G and K, where an odd number of edges come
together. The fly can therefore traverse this network by starting at
G and going to K without retracing an edge – a distance of 25 units.
This is the longest distance it can go without retracing. Each erased
edge can now be added to this path, whenever the fly reaches it, sim-
ply by traversing it back and forth. The five erased edges, each gone
over twice, add 10 units to the path, making a total of 35.

POSTSCRIPT

Margaret Wertheim, writing on “A Puzzle Finally Makes the

‘Cosmic Figures’ Fit,” in The New York Times (May 10, 2005),
describes a remarkable puzzle created by Dr. Wayne Daniel, a retired
physicist living in Genoa, Nevada. Called All Five, it consists of
41 wooden pieces that form the five Platonic solids, all nested
together like Russian matryoshka dolls. Outside is the icosahedron,
followed by the dodecahedron, cube, tetrahedron, and in the center
a tiny octahedron. There are no empty spaces between the pieces!
Dr. Daniel has constructed other puzzles based on the five regular
solids, but this one is his crowning achievement. He has made a
DVD showing how the pieces come apart and go back together. It
can be seen on his Web site.
In the books to follow in this series, there are many references to
problems and curiosities involving the five solids. Note in particular
10 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

a chapter in Book 10 on Jean Pedersen’s way of plaiting polyhe-

dra with paper strips, and references there cited. A chapter devoted
entirely to tetrahedra is in Book 5.
One can imagine how amazed and delighted Plato and Kepler
would have been if someone had given them an All Five.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
“Folding an Envelope into Tetrahedra.” C. W. Trigg in The American
Mathematical Monthly 56:6 (June–July 1949): 410–412.
Mathematical Models. H. Martyn Cundy and A. P. Rollett. Clarendon
Press, 1952.
“Geometry of Paper Folding II: Tetrahedral Models.” C. W. Trigg in
School Science and Mathematics (December 1954): 683–689.
“The Perfect Solids.” Arthur Koestler in The Watershed, a biography of
Johannes Kepler. Chapter 2. Doubleday Anchor Books, 1960. An excel-
lent discussion of Kepler’s attempt to explain the planetary orbits by
means of the Platonic solids.
 CHAPTER TWO

Tetraflexagons

hexaflexagons are diverting six-sided paper structures that can be

“flexed” to bring different surfaces into view. They are constructed
by folding a strip of paper as explained in Book 1. Close cousins to
the hexaflexagons are a wide variety of four-sided structures that
may be grouped loosely under the term “tetraflexagon.”
Hexaflexagons were invented in 1939 by Arthur H. Stone, then
a graduate student at Princeton University and now a lecturer in
mathematics at the University of Manchester in England. Their
properties have been thoroughly investigated; indeed, a complete
mathematical theory of hexaflexigation has been developed. Much
less is known about tetraflexagons. Stone and his friends (notably
John W. Tukey, now a well-known topologist) spent considerable
time folding and analyzing these four-sided forms, but they did not
succeed in developing a comprehensive theory that would cover
all their discordant variations. Several species of tetraflexagon are
nonetheless intensely interesting from the recreational standpoint.
Consider first the simplest tetraflexagon, a three-faced structure
that can be called the tri-tetraflexagon. It is easily folded from the
strip of paper shown in Figure 8 (8a is the front of the strip; 8b, the
back). Number the small squares on each side of the strip as indi-
cated, fold both ends inward (8c) and join two edges with a piece of
transparent tape (8d). Face 2 is now in front; face 1 is in back. To flex
the structure, fold it back along the vertical center line of face 2. Face
1 will fold into the flexagon’s interior as face 3 flexes into view.
Stone and his friends were not the first to discover this interesting
structure; it has been used for centuries as a double-action hinge. I
have on my desk, for instance, two small picture frames containing

11
12 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

Figure 8. How to make a tri-tetraflexagon. (Artist: Bunji Tagawa)

photographs. The frames are joined by two tri-tetraflexagon hinges

which permit the frames to flex forward or backward with equal
ease.
The same structure is involved in several children’s toys, the most
familiar of which is a chain of flat wooden or plastic blocks hinged
together with crossed tapes. If the toy is manipulated properly,
one block seems to tumble down the chain from top to bottom.
Actually this is an optical illusion created by the flexing of the
tri-tetraflexagon hinges in serial order. The toy was popular in the
United States during the 1890s, when it was called Jacob’s Ladder.
(A picture and description of the toy appear in Albert A. Hopkins’s
Magic: Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, 1897.) Two current
models sell under the trade names Klik-Klak Blox and Flip Flop
Blocks.
There are at least six types of four-faced tetraflexagons, known as
tetra-tetraflexagons. A good way to make one is to start with a rect-
angular piece of thin cardboard ruled into 12 squares. Number the
squares on both sides as depicted in Figure 9 (9a and 9b). Cut the
rectangle along the broken lines. Start as shown in 9a, then fold
the two center squares back and to the left. Fold back the column
on the extreme right. The cardboard should now appear as shown in
9c. Again fold back the column on the right. The single square pro-
jecting on the left is now folded forward and to the right. This brings
all six of the “1” squares to the front. Fasten together the edges of
the two middle squares with a piece of transparent tape as shown
in 9d.
 Tetraflexagons 13

Figure 9. How to make a tetra-tetraflexagon. (Artist: Bunji Tagawa)

You will find it a simple matter to flex faces 1, 2, and 3 into view,
but finding face 4 may take a bit more doing. Naturally you must
not tear the cardboard. Higher-order tetraflexagons of this type, if
they have an even number of faces, can be constructed from sim-
ilar rectangular starting patterns; tetraflexagons with an odd num-
ber of faces call for patterns analogous to the one used for the tri-
tetraflexagon. Actually two rows of small squares are sufficient for
making tetraflexagons of this sort, but adding one or more addi-
tional rows (which does not change the essential structure) makes
the model easier to manipulate.
The tetra-tetraflexagon shown in Figure 9 has often been used
as an advertising novelty because the difficulty of finding its fourth
face makes it a pleasant puzzle. I have seen many such folders, some
dating back to the 1930s. One had a penny glued to the hidden
face; the object of the puzzle was to find the lucky penny. In 1946
Roger Montandon, of The Montandon Magic Company, Tulsa, Okla-
homa, copyrighted a tetra-tetraflexagon folder called Cherchez la
Femme, the puzzle being to find the picture of the young lady. Magic
and novelty stores also sell an ancient children’s trick usually called
the “magic billfold.” Its tri-tetraflexagon ribbon-hinges permit some
simple disappearing stunts with a dollar bill and other flat objects.
A different variety of tetraflexagon, and one that has the unusual
property of flexing along either of two axes at right angles to each
14 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

Figure 10. How to make a hexa-tetraflexagon. (Artist: Bunji Tagawa)

other, can also be made with four or more faces. The construction
of a hexa-tetraflexagon of this type is depicted in Figure 10. Begin
with the square-shaped strip shown in 10a (front) and 10b (back). Its
small squares should be numbered as indicated. Crease along each
internal line in 10a so that each line is the trough of a valley, flatten
the strip again, and then fold on the four lines marked with arrows.
All folds are made to conform with the way the lines were originally
creased. The strip now looks like 10c. Fold on the three lines marked
with arrows to form a square flexagon. Overlap the ends so that all
the “2” squares are uppermost (10d). Attach a piece of transparent
tape to the edge of the square at upper left, then bend it back to
overlap the edge of a “1” square on the opposite side.
The hexa-tetraflexagon can now be flexed along both vertical and
horizontal axes to expose all six of its faces. Larger square strips will
yield flexagons whose number of faces increases by fours: 10, 14, 18,
22, and so on. For tetraflexagons of different orders, strips of other
shapes must be used.
It was while Stone was working on right-triangle forms of fle-
xagons (“for which, perhaps mercifully,” he writes in a letter, “we
 Tetraflexagons 15

invented no name”) that he hit upon a most remarkable puzzle – the

tetraflexatube. He had constructed a flat, square-shaped flexagon,
which to his surprise opened into a tube. Further experimenta-
tion revealed that the tube could be turned completely inside out
by a complicated series of flexes along the boundaries of the right
triangles.
The flexatube is made from a strip of four squares (see Figure 11),
each of which is ruled into four right triangles. Crease back and forth
along all the lines, and then tape the ends together to form the cubi-
cal tube. The puzzle is to turn the tube inside out by folding only
on the creased lines. A more durable version can be made by glu-
ing 16 triangles of cardboard or thin metal onto cloth tape, allowing
space between the triangles for flexing. It is useful to color only one
side of the triangles, so that you can see at all times just what sort of
progress you are making toward reversing the tube.
One method of solving this fascinating puzzle is illustrated in
drawings 11b through 11k. Push the two A corners together, flatten-
ing the cube to the square flexagon of drawing 11c. Fold this forward
along the axis BB to form the triangle of drawing 11d. Now push the
two B corners together to make a flat square, but make sure that
the two inside flaps go in opposite directions (11e). Open the square
as in drawing 11f, then pull corner C down and to the left to make
the flat structure shown in drawing 11g. Corner D is now pushed to
the left, behind the structure, creating the flat rectangle of drawing
11h. This rectangle opens to form a cubical tube (11i) that is half the
height of the original one.
You are now at the midpoint of your operations; exactly half the
tube has been reversed. Flatten the tube to make a rectangle again
(11j), but flatten it in the opposite way from that shown in drawing
11h. Starting as shown in drawing 11k, the previous operations are
now “undone,” so to speak, by performing them in reverse. Result: a
reversed flexatube. At least two other completely different methods
of turning the flexatube inside out are known, both as devious and
difficult to discover as this one.
Recently Stone has been able to prove that a cylindrical band
of any width can be turned inside out by a finite number of folds
along straight lines, but the general method is much too involved
to describe here. The question arises: Can a paper bag (that is, a
16 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

Figure 11. How to make and flex a flexatube. (Artist: Bunji Tagawa)

rectangular tube closed on the bottom) be turned inside out by a

finite number of folds? This is an unsolved problem. Apparently the
answer is no, regardless of the bag’s proportions, though it probably
would be extremely difficult to find a satisfactory proof.
 Tetraflexagons 17

Figure 12. Luini painting.

POSTSCRIPT

Tetraflexagons, like hexaflexagons, are curious structures that

belong to an obscure branch of mathematics called hinge theory.
They permit a door, with hinges on both sides, to open to the left or
to the right. Magic shops today sell what is called a Himber Wallet
after Richard (Dick) Himber, an orchestra leader and the amateur
magician who created it. It has two parts joined by a tetraflexagon
hinge that allows it to be opened in two different ways to make cards
appear and disappear. In 1998 Harry Lorayne published The Himber
Wallet Book devoted entirely to tricks using the wallet.
18 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

It is hard to believe, but the wallet’s structure is the same as that

of a magic toy that goes back at least to 1520! That was the conjec-
tured year that Bernardino Luini produced a beautiful oil painting
of a small boy holding two blocks hinged by ribbons that make the
blocks a tetraflexagon.
The cherub is causing a stick to transfer from one block to the
other by opening the blocks in two different ways. It is the earliest
known picture of a magic trick other than a painting of a street con-
juror performing what magicians call a cups and balls routine.
The Luini painting (Figure 12) is reproduced in Gibecièr (Vol. 1,
No. 1, Winter 2005), a handsome journal devoted to the worldwide
history of conjuring. Gibecièr in turn took the picture from a British
journal, The Magic Circular (January 1968), where it was wrongly
attributed to Leonardo da Vinci.
The Gibecièr reproduction of Luini’s painting accompanies an
article by Volker Huber that traces the toy through many curious
variants, notably the tumbling blocks. You’ll find a picture of a
Cherchez la Femme tetraflexagon on pages 361–363 of Martin Gard-
ner Presents (1993), a book sold only in magic supply shops.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
“A Trick Book.” “Willane” in Willane’s Wizardry, pages 42–43. Pri-
vately printed in London, 1947. Shows how to construct the tetra-
tetraflexagon depicted in Figure 9 of this book.
“A Deformation Puzzle.” John Leech in The Mathematical Gazette
39:330 (December 1955): 307. The first printed description of the flex-
atube puzzle. No solution is given.
“Flexa Tube Puzzle.” Martin Gardner in Ibidem 7 (a Canadian magic
magazine) (September 1956): 13, with sample flexatube attached to
page. A solution by T. S. Ransom appears in Ibidem 9 (March 1957):
12. Ransom’s solution is the one given in this book.
Mathematical Snapshots. Hugo Steinhaus. Oxford University Press,
revised edition, 1960. A series of photographs showing the solution
of the flexatube puzzle that differs from Ransom’s solution (see pre-
ceding entry) begins on page 190.
“Square Flexagons.” P. B. Chapman in Mathematical Gazette 45 (1961):
193–194.
 Tetraflexagons 19

“Self-Designing Tetraflexagons.” Robert E. Neale in The Mathematician

and Pied Puzzler, eds. Elwyn Berlekamp and Tom Rodgers. A K Peters,
1999.
“It’s Okay to Be Square if You’re a Flexagon.” Ethan J. Berkove and Jeffrey
P. Dumont in Mathematics Magazine 17 (December 2004): 335–348.
 CHAPTER THREE

Henry Ernest Dudeney: England’s

Greatest Puzzlist

henry ernest dudeney was England’s greatest inventor of puzzles;

indeed, he may well have been the greatest puzzlist who ever lived.
Today there is scarcely a single puzzle book that does not contain
(often without credit) dozens of brilliant mathematical problems
that had their origin in Dudeney’s fertile imagination.
He was born in the English village of Mayfield in 1857. Thus he
was 16 years younger than Sam Loyd, the American puzzle genius.
I do not know whether the two men ever met, but in the 1890s they
collaborated on a series of puzzle articles for the English magazine
Tit-Bits, and later they arranged to exchange puzzles for their mag-
azine and newspaper columns. This may explain the large amount
of duplication in the published writings of Loyd and Dudeney.
Of the two, Dudeney was probably the better mathematician.
Loyd excelled in catching the public fancy with manufactured toys
and advertising novelties. None of Dudeney’s creations had the
worldwide popularity of Loyd’s “Get-off-the-Earth” paradox involv-
ing a vanishing Chinese warrior. On the other hand, Dudeney’s
work was mathematically more sophisticated (he once described
the rebus or picture puzzle, of which Loyd produced hundreds, as
a “juvenile imbecility” of interest only to the feeble-minded). Like
Loyd, he enjoyed clothing his problems with amusing anecdotes.
In this he may have had the assistance of his wife Alice, who wrote
more than 30 romantic novels that were widely read in her time. His
six books of puzzles (three are collections assembled after his death
in 1930) remain unexcelled in the literature of puzzledom.
Dudeney’s first book, The Canterbury Puzzles, was published in
1907. It purports to be a series of quaint posers propounded by the
same group of pilgrims whose tales were recounted by Chaucer: “I

20
 Henry Ernest Dudeney: England’s Greatest Puzzlist 21

Figure 13. Dudeney’s four-piece dissection of equilateral triangle to square.

(Artist: Alex Semenoick)

will not stop to explain the singular manner in which they came into
my possession,” Dudeney writes, “but [will] proceed at once . . . to
give my readers an opportunity of solving them.” The haberdasher’s
problem, found in this book, is Dudeney’s best-known geometri-
cal discovery. The problem is to cut an equilateral triangle into four
pieces that can then be reassembled to form a square.
The drawing at upper left in Figure 13 shows how the cuts are
made. Bisect AB at D and BC at E. Extend AE to F so that EF equals
EB. Bisect AF at G, then, with G as the center, describe the arc AHF.
Extend EB to H. With E as the center, draw the arc HJ. Make JK equal
to BE. From D and K drop perpendiculars on EJ to obtain points L
and M. The four pieces can now be rearranged to make a perfect
square, as shown at upper right in the illustration. A remarkable fea-
ture of this dissection is that, if the pieces are hinged at three vertices
as shown in the drawing at the bottom, they form a chain that can
22 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

be closed clockwise to make the triangle and counterclockwise to

make the square. Dudeney rendered the figure into a brass-hinged
mahogany model, which he used for demonstrating the problem
before the Royal Society of London in 1905.
According to a theorem first proved by the great German mathe-
matician David Hilbert, any polygon can be transformed into any
other polygon of equal area by cutting it into a finite number of
pieces. The proof is lengthy but not difficult. It rests on two facts:
(1) any polygon can be cut by diagonals into a finite number of tri-
angles, and (2) any triangle can be dissected into a finite number of
parts that can be rearranged to form a rectangle of a given base. This
means that we can change any polygon, however weird its shape,
into a rectangle with a given base simply by chopping it first into
triangles, changing the triangles to rectangles with the given base,
and then piling the rectangles in a column. The column can then be
used, by reversing the procedure, for producing any other polygon
with an area equal to that of the original one.
Unexpectedly, the analogous theorem does not hold for poly-
hedrons: solids bounded by plane polygons. There is no general
method for dissecting any polyhedron by plane cuts to form any
different polyhedron of equal volume, though of course it can be
done in special cases. Hope for a general method was abandoned in
1900 when it was proved impossible to dissect a prism into a regular
tetrahedron.
Although Hilbert’s procedure guarantees the transformation of
one polygon into another by means of a finite number of cuts, the
number of pieces required may be very large. To be elegant, a dis-
section must require the fewest possible pieces. This is often ex-
tremely difficult to determine. Dudeney was spectacularly success-
ful in this odd geometrical art, often bettering long-established
records. For example, although the regular hexagon can be cut into
as few as five pieces that will make a square, the regular pentagon
was for many years believed to require at least seven. Dudeney suc-
ceeded in reducing the number to six, the present record. Figure 14
shows how a pentagon can be squared by Dudeney’s method. For an
explanation of how Dudeney arrived at the method, the interested
reader is referred to his Amusements in Mathematics, published in
1917.
 Henry Ernest Dudeney: England’s Greatest Puzzlist 23

Figure 14. A pentagon reassembled into a square. (Artist: Alex Semenoick)

Dudeney’s best-known brain teaser, about the spider and the

fly, is an elementary but beautiful problem in geodesics. It first
appeared in an English newspaper in 1903 but did not arouse
widespread public interest until he presented it again two years later
in the London Daily Mail. A rectangular room has the dimensions
shown in Figure 15. The spider is at the middle of an end wall, one
foot from the ceiling. The fly is at the middle of the opposite end
wall, one foot above the floor, and too paralyzed with fear to move.
What is the shortest distance the spider must crawl in order to reach
the fly?

Figure 15. The problem of the spider and the fly. (Artist: Alex Semenoick)
24 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

Figure 16. The fly and the honey. (Artist: Alex Semenoick)

The problem is solved by cutting the room so that walls and ceil-
ing can be folded flat, then drawing a straight line from spider to fly.
However, there are many ways in which the room can be folded flat,
so it is not as easy as it first appears to determine the shortest path.
A less well-known but similar geodesic problem, which appears
in Dudeney’s Modern Puzzles (published in 1926), involves the cylin-
drical glass shown in Figure 16. It is four inches high and six inches
in circumference. On the inside, one inch from the top, is a drop of
honey. On the outside, one inch from the bottom and directly oppo-
site, is a fly. What is the shortest path by which the fly can walk to
the honey, and exactly how far does the fly walk?
It is interesting to note that although Dudeney had little familiar-
ity with topology, then in its infancy, he frequently used clever topo-
logical tricks for solving various route and counter-moving puzzles.
He called it his “buttons and string method.” A typical example is
afforded by the ancient chess problem shown in Figure 17. How can
you make the white knights change places with the black knights in
the fewest number of moves? We replace the eight outside squares
with buttons (middle illustration) and draw lines to indicate all pos-
sible knight moves. If we regard these lines as strings joining the
buttons, it is clear that we can open the string into a circle (bottom
 Henry Ernest Dudeney: England’s Greatest Puzzlist 25

Figure 17. Dudeney’s “buttons and string method.” (Artist: Alex Semenoick)
26 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

illustration) without changing the topological structure of the ele-

ments and their connections. We see at once that we have only to
move the knights around the circle in either direction until they are
exchanged, keeping a record of the moves so that they can be repro-
duced on the original square board. In this way, what seems at first
to be a difficult problem becomes ridiculously easy.
Of Dudeney’s many problems involving number theory, perhaps
the hardest to solve is the question posed by the doctor of physic
in The Canterbury Puzzles. The good doctor produced two spherical
phials, one exactly a foot in circumference and the other two feet in
circumference. “I do wish,” said the doctor, “to have the exact mea-
sures of two other phials, of a like shape but different in size, that
may together contain just as much liquid as is contained by these
two.”
Since similar solids have volumes that are in the same proportion
as the cubes of corresponding lengths, the problem reduces to the
Diophantine task of finding two rational numbers other than 1 and
2 whose cubes will add up to nine. Both numbers must of course be
fractions. Dudeney’s solution was
415280564497 676702467503
and
348671682660 348671682660
These fractions had denominators of shorter length than any pre-
viously published. Considering the fact that Dudeney worked with-
out a modern digital computer, the achievement is something to
wonder at.
Readers who like this type of problem may enjoy the much sim-
pler search for two fractions whose cubes total exactly six. A pub-
lished “proof”, by the nineteenth-century French mathematician
Adrien Marie Legendre, that no such fractions could be found was
exploded when Dudeney discovered a solution in which each frac-
tion has only two digits above and two below the line.

ADDENDUM

Dudeney’s dissection of the equilateral triangle to form a square

brought a number of interesting letters from readers. John S. Gaskin
 Henry Ernest Dudeney: England’s Greatest Puzzlist 27

of London and Arthur B. Niemoller of Morristown, New Jersey, inde-

pendently discovered that Dudeney’s method, with certain modifi-
cations, can be applied to a large class of triangles that are not equi-
lateral. A lady in Brooklyn wrote that her son had constructed for
her a nest of four tables, the tops of which can be fitted together to
make either a square or an equilateral triangle, and that the tables
had proved to be quite a conversation piece. L. Vosburgh Lyons of
New York used Dudeney’s construction for cutting the plane into an
endless mosaic of interlocking squares and equilateral triangles.
Several readers, supposing that points J and K (in Figure 13) lay
directly beneath points D and E, sent proofs that the four pieces
would not form a perfect square. But Dudeney’s construction does
not put J and K exactly beneath D and E. A formal proof of the accu-
racy of the dissection will be found in Chester W. Hawley’s article, “A
Further Note on Dissecting a Square into an Equilateral Triangle,” in
The Mathematics Teacher, February 1960.
A remarkable variation of Dudeney’s spider and fly problem will
be found in Maurice Kraitchik’s Mathematical Recreations, 1953,
page 17. Eight spiders start from a spot 80 inches above the center
of one end wall of the rectangular room. They take eight different
paths to reach a fly that is 80 inches below the center of the opposite
wall. Each spider moves at a speed of .65 mile per hour, and at the
end of 625/11 seconds they arrive simultaneously at the fly. What
are the room’s dimensions?

ANSWERS

The shortest walking path of the spider to the fly is exactly 40 feet,
as indicated on the unfolded room shown in Figure 18. The reader
may be surprised that this geodesic carries the spider across five of
the room’s six sides.
The fly reaches the honey along the five-inch path drawn on the
unrolled cylinder depicted in Figure 19. This is the path that would
be taken by an imaginary beam of light moving across the rectangle
from fly to honey and reflected by the rectangle’s upper boundary.
Clearly it is the same length as the hypotenuse of a right triangle
with sides of three and four, as indicated.
28 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

Figure 18. Answer to spider and fly problem. (Artist: Alex Semenoick)

The two fractions whose cubes add up to six are 17/21 and 37/21.
For an answer to the spiders and fly puzzle given in the adden-
dum, consult the reference cited.

POSTSCRIPT

Greg Frederickson, the world’s top expert on geometric dissections,

has written an entire book titled Piano-Hinged Dissections: Time to
Fold! (A K Peters, 2006). It is an amazing compilation of original dis-
coveries of dissections in which pieces are hinged together so one
polygon can be transformed to the other, like Dudeney’s lovely tri-
angle to square, simply by moving the hinged pieces.

Figure 19. Answer to fly and honey problem. (Artist: Alex Semenoick)
 Henry Ernest Dudeney: England’s Greatest Puzzlist 29

1
2

X
1
B
A

Figure 20. (Artist: Harold Jacobs)

Many puzzles have been based on an ant or a fly crawling over the
surface of a specified solid. Consider the following problem. An ant
is at corner A of a 1 × 1 × 2 brick. It crawls along a geodesic to point
B somewhere on the 1 × 1 face opposite the starting face. Where
should B be located to maximize the geodesic’s length? Intuitively
one would suppose it would be at corner X opposite A along a space
diagonal because this is the point at the greatest distance from A.
Not so! Yoshiyuki Kotani, a Japanese mathematician, recently dis-
covered that the longest geodesic distance from A to B is to a point
one-fourth of the way down a diagonal from the corner that is the
farthest from A! (See Figure 20.)
For details and a proof see my article “The Ant on the 1 × 1 × 2”
in Math Horizons (February 1996), reprinted in Gardner’s Workout
(A K Peters, 2001) and “Kotani’s Ant Problem” by Dick Hess in Puz-
zler’s Tribute (A K Peters, 2002). Hess discusses generalizations and
variations of the problem. A section on “Spider and Fly Problems”
is in David Singmaster’s Sources in Recreational Mathematics, sixth
edition (1993), published by the author and constantly updated on
his Web site.
A difficult generalization of Dudeney’s problem about the ex-
change of black and white knights on a 3 × 3 matrix can be found
in Clifford Pickover’s A Passion for Mathematics (Wiley, 2005), page
185. The matrix is 3 × 4. Four black knights, labeled A, B, C, and D,
are along the top row. Four white knights are similarly labeled along
the bottom row. The task is to use knight moves to exchange the two
knights labeled A, the two labeled B, and so on for C and D, and to do
30 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

this with the minimum number of moves. John Conway and Barry
Cipra have proved that the smallest number of moves is 32.
I had the great pleasure of meeting Alice Dudeney, Henry’s
daughter, before she passed away. She told me that she did most of
the illustrations for her father’s puzzle books, and that her famous
mother’s diary was to be opened to the public in 2000. We arranged
for Scribner’s to combine Dudeney’s last two books of mathematical
puzzles into a single volume titled 536 Puzzles and Curious Problems
(1967). I regrouped the puzzles and wrote an introduction. The book
was later reprinted by Barnes and Noble in 1995. Both editions are
currently out of print.
In 1884 Dudeney married Alice Whiffin (1866–1945). She was
then 18. According to the Wikipedia, Dudeney was a skillful pianist
and organist, and a devout Anglican. He and Alice were for a time
separated. Dudeney died of throat cancer in 1930. He and his wife
are buried in Lewes, where they had moved in 1914.
Alice’s personal diaries were edited by Diana Cook and pub-
lished in 1998 under the title of A Lewes Diary, 1916–1944. “They
give a lively picture,” says the Wikipedia, “of her attempts to bal-
ance her literary career with her marriage to her brilliant but volatile
husband.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY

books by dudeney
The Canterbury Puzzles, 1907. Reprinted by Dover Publications, Inc., in
1958.
Amusements in Mathematics, 1917. Reprinted by Dover Publications,
Inc., in 1958.
Modern Puzzles, 1926.
Puzzles and Curious Problems, 1931.
A Puzzle-Mine, edited by James Travers, undated.
World’s Best Word Puzzles, edited by James Travers, 1925.

articles by dudeney
Puzzles and articles by Dudeney are scattered throughout many
English newspapers and periodicals: The Strand Magazine (in which
 Henry Ernest Dudeney: England’s Greatest Puzzlist 31

his puzzle column “Perplexities” ran for twenty years), Cassell’s

Magazine, The Queen, The Weekly Dispatch, Tit-Bits, Educational
Times, Blighty, and others.
The following two articles are of special interest:
“The Psychology of Puzzle Crazes,” in The Nineteenth Century 100:6
(December 1926): 868–879.
“Magic Squares,” in The Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed.

references about dudeney

“The Puzzle King: An Interview with Henry E. Dudeney.” Fenn Sherie in
The Strand Magazine 71 (April 1926): 398–404.
Preface by Alice Dudeney to her husband’s Puzzles and Curious Prob-
lems, listed above.
“The Life and Work of H. E. Dudeney.” Angela Newring in Mathematical
Spectrum 21 (1988–1989): 38–44.
A biographical sketch of Alice Dudeney, who was more famous in her
day than Henry, will be found in the British Who Was Who.

on dissections
Geometric Dissections. Harry Lindgren. D. Van Nostrand, 1964.
Dissections: Plane & Fancy. Greg N. Frederickson. Cambridge, 1997.
Hinged Dissections: Swinging & Twisting. Greg N. Frederickson. Cam-
bridge, 2002.
Piano-Hinged Dissections. Greg N. Frederickson. A K Peters, 2006.
 CHAPTER FOUR

Digital Roots

jot down your telephone number. Scramble the order of the dig-
its in any way you please to form a new number; then subtract the
smaller number from the larger. Add all the digits in the answer. Now
place your finger on the star in the circle of mysterious symbols (Fig-
ure 21) and count them clockwise around the circle, calling the star
1, the triangle 2 and so on until you reach the number that was the
final step in the procedure given above. Your count is sure to end on
the spiral.
The operation of this little trick is not hard to understand, and it
provides a painless introduction to the concept of numerical con-
gruence formulated by the great German mathematician Carl
Friedrich Gauss. If two numbers have the same remainder when
divided by a given number called k, they are said to be congruent
modulo k. The number k is called the modulus. Thus 16 and 23 both
have a remainder of 2 when divided by 7 and are therefore congru-
ent modulo 7.
Because 9 is the largest digit in the decimal number system, the
sum of the digits of any number will always be congruent modulo 9
to the original number. The digits in this second number can then
be added to obtain a third number congruent to the other two, and
if we continue this process until only one digit remains, it will be
the remainder itself. For example, 4,157 has a remainder of 8 when
divided by 9. Its digits total 17, which also has a remainder of 8 mod-
ulo 9. And the digits of 17 add up to 8. This last digit is called the
digital root of the original number. It is the same as the number’s
remainder modulo 9, with the exception of numbers with a remain-
der of 0, in which case the digital root is 9 instead of 0.

32
 Digital Roots 33

Figure 21. Symbols for a trick with a telephone number. (Artist: Alex Semenoick)

Obtaining the digital root is simply the ancient process of “cast-

ing out 9’s.” Before the development of computing devices, the tech-
nique was widely used by accountants for checking their results.
Early electronic computers, for example, the International Business
Machine NORC, used the technique as one of their built-in meth-
ods of self-checking for accuracy. The method is based on the fact
that if whole numbers are added, subtracted, multiplied, or evenly
divided, the answer will be congruent modulo 9 to the number
obtaining by adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing the dig-
ital roots of those same numbers.
For example, to check quickly a sum involving large numbers
you obtain the digital roots of the numbers, add them, reduce the
answer to a root, then see if it corresponds to the digital root of the
answer you wish to test. If the roots fail to match, you know that
there is an error somewhere. If they do match, there still may be
an error, but the probability is fairly high that the computation is
correct.
Let us see how all this applies to the telephone-number trick.
Scrambling the digits of the number cannot change its digital root,
so we have here a case in which a number with a certain digital root
34 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

is subtracted from a larger number with the same digital root. The
result is certain to be a number evenly divisible by 9. To see why this
is so, think of the larger number as consisting of a certain multiple of
9, to which is added a digital root (the remainder when the number
is divided by nine). The smaller number consists of a smaller mul-
tiple of 9, to which is added the same digital root. When the smaller
number is subtracted from the larger, the digital roots cancel out,
leaving a multiple of 9.

(A multiple of 9) + a digital root

−(A multiple of 9) + the same digital root
(A multiple of 9) + 0
Since the answer is a multiple of 9, it will have a digital root of 9.
Adding the digits will give a smaller number that also has a digital
root of 9, so the final result is certain to be a multiple of 9. There
are nine symbols in the mystic circle. The count, therefore, is sure to
end on the ninth symbol from the first one that is tapped.
A knowledge of digital roots often furnishes amazing shortcuts in
solving problems that seem unusually difficult. For example, sup-
pose you are asked to find the smallest number composed of 1’s and
0’s that is evenly divisible by 225. The digits in 225 have a digital root
of 9, so you know at once that the required number must also have a
digital root of 9. The smallest number composed of 1’s that will have
a digital root of 9 is obviously 111,111,111. Adding zeros at signifi-
cant spots will enlarge the number but will not alter the root. Our
problem is to increase 111,111,111 by the smallest amount that will
make it divisible by 225. Since 225 is a multiple of 25, the number
we seek must also be a multiple of 25. All multiples of 25 must end
in 00, 25, 50, or 75. The last three pairs cannot be used, so we attach
00 to 111,111,111 to obtain the answer: 11,111,111,100.
Mathematical games also frequently lend themselves to digital-
root analysis, as for example this game played with a single die. An
arbitrary number, usually larger than 20 to make the game interest-
ing, is agreed upon. The first player rolls the die, scoring the number
that is uppermost. The second player now gives the die a quarter
turn in any direction, adding to the previous score the number he
brings to the top. Players alternate in making quarter-turns, keeping
a running total, until one of them wins by reaching the agreed-upon
 Digital Roots 35

number or forcing his opponent to go above it. The game is difficult

to analyze because the four side-numbers available at each turn
vary with the position of the die. What strategy should one adopt
to play the best possible game?
The key numbers in the strategy are those that have digital roots
that are the same as the digital root of the goal. If you can score a
number in this series, or permanently prevent your opponent from
doing so, you have a certain win. For example, the game is often
played with the goal of 31, which has a digital root of 4. The only
way the first player can force a win is by rolling a 4. Thereafter he
either plays to get back in the series 4–13–22–31, or plays so that his
opponent cannot enter it. Preventing an opponent from entering
the series is somewhat tricky, so I shall content myself with saying
only that one must either play to five below a key number, leaving
the 5 on the top or the bottom of the die; or to four or three below,
or one above, leaving the 4 on the top or the bottom.
There is always one roll, and sometimes two or three, that will
guarantee a win for the first player, except when the digital root of
the goal happens to be 9. In such cases, the second player can always
force a win. When the goal is chosen at random, the odds of winning
greatly favor the second player. If the first player chooses the goal,
what should be the digital root of the number he picks in order to
have the best chance of winning?
A large number of self-working card tricks depend on the proper-
ties of digital roots. In my opinion, the best is a trick currently sold
in magic shops as a four-page typescript titled “Remembering the
Future.” It was invented by Stewart James of Courtright, Ontario, a
magician who has probably devised more high-quality mathemat-
ical card tricks than anyone who ever lived. The trick is explained
here with James’s permission.
From a thoroughly shuffled deck you remove nine cards with val-
ues from ace to 9, arranging them in sequence with the ace on top.
Show the audience what you have done; then explain that you will
cut this packet so that no one will know what cards are at what posi-
tions. Hold the packet face down in your hands and appear to cut it
randomly but actually cut it so that three cards are transferred from
bottom to top. From the top down the cards will now be in the order:
7–8 9–1 2–3 4–5 6.
36 Origami, Eleusis, and the Soma Cube

Slowly remove one card at a time from the top of this packet,
transferring these cards to the top of the deck. As you take each card,
ask a spectator if he wishes to select that card. He must, of course,
select one of the nine. When he says “Yes,” leave the chosen card on
top of the remaining cards in the packet and put the packet aside.
The deck is now cut at any spot by a spectator to form two piles.
Count the cards in one pile; then reduce this number to its digital
root by adding the digits until a single digit remains. Do the same
with the other pile. The two roots are now added, and if necessary
the total is reduced to its digital root. The chosen card, on top of the
packet placed aside, is now turned over. It has correctly predicted
the outcome of the previous steps!
Why does it work? After the nine cards are properly arranged and
cut, the 7 will be on top. The deck will consist of 43 cards, a number
with a digital root of 7. If the spectator does not choose the 7, it is
added to the deck, making a total of 44 cards. The packet now has
an 8 on top, and 8 is the digital root of 44. In other words, the card
selected by the spectator must necessarily correspond to the digital
root of the number of cards in the deck. Cutting the deck in two parts
and combining the roots of each portion as described will, of course,
result in the same digit as the digital root of the entire deck.

ADDENDUM

It is asserted at the beginning of this chapter that because our num-

ber system is based on 10, the digital root of any number is the same
as the remainder when that number is divided by 9. This is not hard
to prove, and perhaps an informal statement of a proof will interest
some readers.
Consider a four-digit number, say 4,135. This can be written as
sums of powers of 10:

(4 × 1,000) + (1 × 100) + (3 × 10) + (5 × 1)

If 1 is subtracted from each power of 10, we can write the same num-
ber like this:

(4 × 999) + (1 × 99) + (3 × 9) + (5 × 0) + 4 + 1 + 3 + 5
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of mirth that he could no longer control. I was thus left to meet the
situation as best I could, but was not as fortunate as the General,
who had a friendly mustache to curtain the quiver in his mouth. The
poor victim apparently recalled to himself the martial attitude of
Washington crossing the Delaware, or Napoleon at Waterloo, and did
not alter the first position he had assumed. In trying to prevent him
from seeing my confusion, I redoubled my efforts to entertain him,
and succeeded only too well, for when he slowly moved out of the
door I found myself tired out, and full of wrath toward my returning
family. I never could remember that these little spurts of rage were
the primest fun for my people. The poor officer who had been so
guyed did not gratify his tormentors by getting angry, but fell to
planning new mischief for the next arrival. He lost no time in
begging my pardon for the hat, and though I never saw much of
him afterward, he left only pleasant impressions on my mind of a
kind-hearted man, and one of those rare beings who knew how to
take a joke.
We derived great pleasure from our horses and dogs during the
autumn. A very pretty sorrel horse was selected for Diana, but we
had little opportunity to have her for a companion. The young
officers engaged her a week in advance, and about all we saw of her
riding was an avalanche of flying curls as she galloped off beside
some dashing cavalier. I remember once, when she was engaged
otherwise, and my horse temporarily disabled, I took hers, and my
husband kept begging me to guide the animal better, for it was
nettling his fiery beast by insisting upon too close proximity. It finally
dawned upon us that the little horse was a constitutional snuggler,
and we gave up trying to teach him new tricks. But how the General
shouted, and bent himself forward and back in his saddle, after the
horse had almost crushed his leg and nothing would keep him at a
distance. He could hardly wait to get back to garrison, and when we
did, he walked into the midst of a collection of the beaux and told
the whole story of how dreadfully demoralized a cavalry horse in
good and regular standing could become, in the hands of a belle.
The girl blushed, and the officers joined in the laughter, and yet
every one of them had doubtless been busy in teaching that little
telltale animal this new development of character.
It was delightful ground to ride over about Fort Riley. Ah! what
happy days they were, for at that time I had not the slightest
realization of what Indian warfare was, and consequently no dread.
We knew that the country they infested was many miles away, and
we could ride in any direction we chose. The dogs would be aroused
from the deepest sleep at the very sight of our riding costumes, and
by the time we were well into them and whip in hand, they leaped
and sprang about the room, tore out on the gallery, and tumbled
over one another and the furniture in racing back, and such a din of
barking and joyful whining as they set up—the noisier the better for
my husband. He snapped his whip to incite them, and bounded
around crying out, "Whoop'em up! whoop'em up!" adding to the
mêlée by a toot on the dog-horn he had brought from the Texas
deer-hunts. All this excited the horses, and when I was tossed into
the saddle amidst this turmoil, with the dogs leaping around the
horses' heads, I hardly knew whether I was myself or the
venturesome young woman who spends her life in taking airy flights
through paper-covered circles in a sawdust ring. It took some years
for me to accustom myself to the wild din and hubbub of our
starting for a ride or a hunt. As I have said before, I had lived quietly
at home, and my decorous, suppressed father and mother never
even spoke above a certain tone. The General's father, on the
contrary, had rallied his sons with a hallo and resounding shouts
from their childhood. So the hullabaloo of all our merry startings was
a thing of my husband's early days, and added zest to every sport
he undertook.
Coming from Michigan, where there is a liberal dispensation of
swamp and quagmire, having been taught by dear experience that
Virginia had quicksands and sloughs into which one could disappear
with great rapidity, and finally, having experienced Texas with its
bayous, baked with a deceiving crust of mud, and its rivers with
quicksand beds, very naturally I guided my horse around any lands
that had even a depression. Indeed, he spoke volumes with his
sensitive ears, as the turf darkened in hollows, and was ready
enough to be guided by the rein on his satin-like neck, to the safer
ground. It was a long time before I realized that all the Plains were
safe. We chose no path, and stopped at no suspicion of a slough.
Without a check on the rein, we flew over divide after divide, and it
is beyond my pen to describe the wild sense of freedom that takes
possession of one in the first buoyant knowledge that no
impediment, seemingly, lies between you and the setting sun. After
one has ridden over conventional highways, the beaten path marked
out by fences, hedges, bridges, etc., it is simply an impossibility to
describe how the blood bounds in the veins at the freedom of an
illimitable sea. No spongy, uncertain ground checks the course over
the Plains; it is seldom even damp, and the air is so exhilarating one
feels as if he had never breathed a full breath before. Almost the
first words General Sherman said to me out there were, "Child, you'll
find the air of the Plains is like champagne," and so it surely was.
Oh, the joy of taking in air without a taint of the city, or even the
country, as we know it in farm life! As we rode on, speaking
enthusiastically of the fragrance and purity of the atmosphere, our
horses neighed and whinnied to each other, and snuffed the air, as if
approving all that was said of that "land of the free." My husband
could hardly breathe, from the very ecstasy of realizing that nothing
trammeled him. He scarcely left the garrison behind him, where he
was bound by chains of form and ceremony—the inevitable lot of an
officer, where all his acts are under surveillance, where he is obliged
to know that every hour in the day he is setting an example—before
he became the wildest and most frolicsome of light-hearted boys.
His horse and he were one, not only as he sat in the saddle, a part
of the animal, swayed by every motion of the active, graceful beast,
but such unison of spirit took possession of each, it was hard to
believe that a human heart did not beat under the broad, splendid
chest of the high-strung animal.
It were well if human hearts responded to our fondness, and
came instantly to be en rapport with us, as did those dear animals
when they flew with us out to freedom and frolic, over the divides
that screened us from the conventional proprieties. My husband's
horse had almost human ways of talking with him, as he leaned far
out of the saddle and laid his face on the gallant animal's head, and
there was a gleam in the eye, a proud little toss of the head,
speaking back a whole world of affection. The General could ride
hanging quite out of sight from the opposite side, one foot caught in
the stirrup, his hand on the mane; and it made no difference to his
beloved friend, he took any mode that his master chose to cling to
him as a matter of course, and curveted and pranced in the loftiest,
proudest way. His manner said as plainly as speech, "See what we
two can do!" I rarely knew him to have a horse that did not soon
become so pervaded with his spirit that they appeared to be
absolutely one in feeling. I was obliged, usually, to submit to some
bantering slur on my splendid Custis Lee. Perhaps a dash at first
would carry the General and the dogs somewhat in advance. My side
had a trick of aching if we started off on a gallop, and I was obliged
to keep a tight rein on Custis Lee at first, as he champed at the bit,
tossed his impatient head, and showed every sign of ignominious
shame. The General, as usual, called out, "Come on, old lady! Hurry
up that old plug of yours; I have one orderly; don't want another"—
this because the soldier in attendance is instructed to ride at a
certain distance in the rear. After a spurt of tremendous speed, back
flew the master to beg me to excuse him; he was ready now to ride
slowly till "that side of mine came round to time," which it quickly
did, and then I revenged the insult on my swift Lee, and the
maligner at last called out, "That's not so bad a nag, after all."
The horses bounded from the springy turf as if they really hated
the necessity of touching the sod at all. They were very well
matched in speed, and as on we flew were "neck by neck, stride by
stride, never changing our place." Breathless at last, horses, dogs
and ourselves made a halt. The orderly with his slow troop horse
was a speck in the distance. Of course I had gone to pieces little by
little, between the mad speed and rushing through the wind of the
Plains. Those were ignominious days for women—thank fortune they
are over! Custom made it necessary to disfigure ourselves with the
awkward waterfall, and, no matter how luxuriant the hair, it seemed
a necessity to still pile up more. With many a wrathful opinion
regarding the fashion, the General took the hairpins, net and switch,
and thrust them into the breast of his coat, as he said, "to clear the
decks for action for another race." It was enough that he offered to
carry these barbarities of civilization for me, without my bantering
him about his ridiculousness if some accidental opening of his coat in
the presence of the officers, who were then strangers, revealed what
he scoffingly called "dead women's hair."
A fresh repinning, an ignoring of hairpins this time, re-girthing of
saddles, some proud patting of the horses' quiving flanks, passing of
the hand over the full veins of their necks, praise of the beautiful
distended, blood-red nostrils, and on we started for another race. If
spur or whip had been used in speeding our horses, it would have
spoiled the sport for me, as the effort and strain looks so cruelly like
work; but the animals were as impatient for a run as we were to
start them. It must be a rare moment of pleasure to all horse-lovers,
to watch an animal flying over the ground, without an incentive save
the love of motion born in the beast. When we came to certain
smooth stretches on the road, where we were accustomed to give
the horses the rein, they grew excited and impatient, and teased for
the run if we chanced to be earnestly talking and forgot to take it.
How fortunate is one who can ride a mythological Pegasus as well as
a veritable horse! There is nothing left for the less gifted but to use
others' words for our own enthusiasm:
"Now we're off, like the winds, to the plains
whence they came;
And the rapture of motion is thrilling my
frame!
On, on, speeds my courser, scarce printing the
sod,
Scarce crushing a daisy to mark where we
trod;
 On, on, like a deer when the hounds' early bay
Awakes the wild echoes, away and away!
Still faster, still farther, he leaps at my cheer,
Till the rush of the startled air whirs in my
ear!"
Buchanan Read not only made General Sheridan's splendid black
horse immortal, but his grateful owner kept that faithful beast, when
it was disabled, in a paddock at Leavenworth, and then, when age
and old wounds ended his life, he perpetuated his memory by
having the taxidermist set him up in the Military Museum at
Governor's Island, that the boys of this day, to whom the war is only
history, may remember what a splendid part a horse took in those
days, when soldiers were not the only heroes. I thank a poet for
having written thus for us to whom the horse is almost human:
"I tell thee, stranger, that unto me
The plunge of a fiery steed
Is a noble thought—to the brave and free
It is music, and breath, and majesty—
'Tis the life of a noble deed;
And the heart and the mind are in spirit allied
In the charm of a morning's glorious ride."
There was a long, smooth stretch of land beyond Fort Riley,
where we used to speed our horses, and it even now seems one of
the fair spots of earth, it is so marked by happy hours. In reality it
was a level plain without a tree, and the dried buffalo-grass had then
scarcely a tinge of green. This neutral-tinted, monotonous surface
continued for many unvarying miles. We could do as we chose after
we had passed out of sight of the garrison, and our orderly, if he
happened to have a decent horse that could overtake us, kept
drawing the muscles of his face into a soldierly expression, trying not
to be so undignified as to laugh at the gamesomeness, the frolic, of
his commanding officer. What a relief for the poor fellow, in his
uneventful life, to get a look at these pranks! I can see him now,
trying to keep his head away and look unconscious, but his eyes
 turned in their sockets in
spite of him and caught it
all. Those eyes were wild
with terror one day, when
our horses were going full
tilt, and the General with
one powerful arm, lifted
me out of my saddle and
held me poised in the air
for a moment. Our horses
were so evenly matched in
speed they were neck and
neck, keeping close to each
other, seemingly regardless
of anything except the
delight at the speed with
which they left the country
behind them. In the brief
moment that I found
myself suspended between
heaven and earth, I
thought, with lightning
rapidity, that I must cling
to my bridle and keep
A SUSPENDED EQUESTRIENNE. control of my flying horse,
and trust to good fortune
whether I alighted on his ear or his tail. The moment I was thus held
aloft was an hour in uncertainty, but nothing happened, and it
taught me to prepare for sudden raids of the commanding officer
after that. I read of this feat in some novel, but was incredulous until
it was successfully practiced on me. The Custer men were given to
what their Maryland father called "toting" us around. I've seen them
pick up their mother and carry her over the house as if she weighed
fifty instead of one hundred and fifty pounds. There was no chance
for dignified anger with them. No matter how indignant I might be,
or how loftily I might answer back, or try one of those eloquent
silences to which we women sometimes resort in moments of wrath,
I was snatched up by either my husband or Tom, and had a chance
to commune with the ceiling in my airy flight up and down stairs and
through the rooms.
One of our rides marked a day with me, for it was the occasion of
a very successful exchange of horses. My husband used laughingly
to refer to the transaction as unfortunate for him; but as it was at
his suggestion, I clung with pertinacity to the bargain. My horse,
Custis Lee, being a pacer, my husband felt in the fascination of that
smooth, swift gait I might be so wedded to it I could never endure
anything else; so he suggested, while we were far out on our
evening ride, that we change saddles and try each other's horse. I
objected, for though I could ride a spirited horse when I had come
to know him, I dreaded the early stages of acquaintance. Besides,
Phil was a high-strung colt, and it was a venturesome experiment to
try him with a long riding-skirt, loaded with shot, knocking about his
legs. At that time the safe fashion of short habits was not in vogue,
and the high winds of Kansas left no alternative to loading our skirts.
We kept opening the hem and inserting the little shot-bags as long
as we lived there. Fortunately for me, I was persuaded into trying
the colt. As soon as he broke into a long swinging trot, I was so
enchanted and so hilarious with the motion, that I mentally resolved
never to yield the honor temporarily conferred upon me. It was the
beginning of an eternal vigilance for my husband. The animal was so
high-strung, so quick, notwithstanding he was so large, that he
sprang from one side of the road to the other on all fours, without
the slightest warning. After I had checked him and recovered my
breath, we looked about for a cause for this fright, and found only
the dark earth where slight moisture had remained from a shower.
In order to get the smoothest trotting out of him, I rode with a
snaffle, and I never knew the General's eyes to be off him for more
than an instant. The officers protested, and implored my husband to
change back and give me the pacer. But his pride was up, and he
enjoyed seeing the animal quivering with delight at doing his best
under a light weight, and he had genuine love for the brute that,
though so hard to manage in his hands, responded to my lightest
touch or to my voice.
As time advanced and our regiment gained better and better
horseflesh, it was a favorite scheme to pit Phil against new-comers.
We all started out, a gay cavalcade of noisy, happy people, and the
stranger was given the post of honor next to the wife of the
commanding officer. Of course he thought nothing of this, as he had
been at the right of the hostess at dinner. The other officers saw him
take his place as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but in
reality it was a deep-laid plot. Phil started off with so little effort that
our visitor thought nothing of keeping pace for a while, and then he
began to use his spurs. As my colt took longer and longer strides,
there was triumph in the faces of the officers, and a gleam of delight
in the General's eye. Then came the perplexity in my guest's face at
a trotter outdoing the most splendid specimen of a loping horse, as
he thought. A little glance from my husband, which incited me to
give a sign and a low word or two that only Phil and I understood,
and off we flew, leaving the mystified man urging his nag in vain. It
was not quite my idea of hospitality so to introduce a new-comer to
our horses' speed; but then he was not a transient guest, and the
sooner he knew all our "tricks and our manners" the better, while it
was beyond my power of self-denial to miss seeing the proud
triumph in my husband's eyes as he rode up and patted the colt and
received the little return of affection from the knowing beast. Phil
went on improving in gait and swiftness as he grew in years, and I
once had the courage, afterward, to speed him on the Government
race-track at Fort Leavenworth, though to this day I cannot
understand how I got up to concert pitch; and I could never be
induced to try such an experiment again. I suppose I often made as
good time, trotting beside my husband's horse, but to go alone was
something I was never permitted to do on a roadway. The General
and brother Tom connived to get this bit of temporary courage out
of me by an offhand conversation, as we rode toward the track,
regarding what Phil might be made to do under the best
circumstances, which I knew meant the snaffle-rein, a light weight,
and my hand, which the General had trained to be steady. I tried to
beg off and suggest either one of them for the trial; but the curb
which they were obliged to use, as Phil was no easy brute to
manage with them, made him break his gait, and a hundred and
seventy pounds on his back was another obstacle to speed. It ended
in my being teased into the experiment, and though I called out,
after the first half-mile, that I could not breathe any longer, the air
rushed into my lungs so rapidly, they implored and urged by gesture
and enthusiastic praise, until I made the mile they had believed Phil
equal to in three minutes.
I wish I could describe what delight my husband took in his horse
life, what hours of recreation and untiring pleasure he got out of our
companionship with Jack Rucker, Phil and Custis Lee. On that day we
three and our orderly were alone on the track, and such a merry,
noisy, care-forgetting three as we were! the General, with his stop-
watch in hand, cheering me, urging the horse wildly, clapping his
hands, and hallooing with joy as the animal responded to his
expectation. Phil's coming up to their boasts and anticipations was
just a little episode in our life that went to prove what a rare faculty
he had of getting much out of little, and of how persistently the boy
in him cropped out as soon as an opportunity came to throw care
aside. It is one of the results of a life of deprivation, that pleasures,
when they come, are rarities, and the enjoyment is intensified. In
our life they lasted so short a time that we had no chance to learn
the meaning of satiety.
One of the hardest trials, in our first winter with the regiment,
was that arising from the constantly developing tendency to hard
drinking. Some who came to us had held up for a time, but they
were not restricted in the volunteer service, as a man who fought
well was forgiven much else that came in the rare intervals of peace.
In the new state of affairs, as went the first few months of the
regiment, so would it go for all time. There was a regiment stationed
in New Mexico at that time, the record of which was shameful. We
heard of its career by every overland train that came into our post,
and from officers who went out on duty. General Sherman said that,
with such a set of drunkards, the regiment, officers and all, should
be mustered out of the service. Anything, then, rather than let our
Seventh follow such a course. But I must not leave the regiment at
that point in its history. Eventually it came out all right, ably officered
and well soldiered, but it was the terror of the country in 1867.
While General Custer steadily fought against drunkenness, he was
not remorseless or unjust. I could cite one instance after another, to
prove with what patience he strove to reclaim some who were, I
fear, hopeless when they joined us. His own greatest battles were
not fought in the tented field; his most glorious combats were those
waged in daily, hourly fights on a more hotly contested field than
was ever known in common warfare. The truest heroism is not that
which goes out supported by strong battalions and reserve artillery.
It is when a warrior for the right enters into the conflict alone, and
dares to exercise his will in defiance of some established custom in
which lies a lurking, deadly peril or sin. I have known my husband to
almost stand alone in his opinion regarding temperance, in a
garrison containing enough people to make a good-sized village. He
was thoroughly unostentatious about his convictions, and rarely said
much; but he stood to his fixed purpose, purely from horror of the
results of drinking. I would not imply that in garrison General Custer
was the only man invariably temperate. There were some on pledge;
some temperate because they paid such a physical penalty by actual
illness that they could not drink; some restrained because their best-
loved comrade, weak in his own might, "swore off" on consideration
that the stronger one of the two backed him up; some (God bless
them!) refused because the woman they loved grieved, and was
afraid of even one friendly glass. What I mean is, that the general
custom, against which there is little opposition in any life, is, either
to indulge in the social glass, or look leniently upon the habit.
Without preaching or parading his own strength in having overcome
the habit, General Custer stood among the officers and men as firm
an advocate of temperance as any evangelist whose life is devoted
to the cause.
 I scarcely think I would have realized the constantly recurring
temptations of my husband's life, had I not been beside him when
he fought these oft-repeated battles. The pleasure he had in
convivial life, the manner in which men and women urged him to
join them in enjoyment of the sparkling wine, was enough to have
swept every resolution to the winds. Sometimes the keen blade of
sarcasm, though set with jewels of wit and apparent badinage,
added a cut that my ears, so quickened to my husband's hard
position, heard and grieved over. But he laughed off the carefully
concealed thrust. When we were at home in our own room, if I
asked him, blazing anew with wrath at such a stab, how he kept his
temper, he replied, "Why notice it? Don't I know what I've been
through to gain my victory? That fellow, you must remember, has
fought and lost, and knows in his soul he'll go to the dogs if he
doesn't hold up, and, Libbie, he can't do it, and I am sorry for him."
Our brother Tom was less patient, less forbearing, for in one of his
times of pledge, when the noble fellow had given his word not to
taste a drop for a certain season if a man he loved, and about whom
he was anxious, would do the same, he was sneered at by a brother
officer, with gibes at his supposed or attempted superiority. Tom
leaped across the table in the tent where they sat at dinner, and
shook up his assailant in a very emphatic way. I laugh in
remembrance of his choler, and am proud of it now. I, as
"gentlewoman," descended from a line of decorous gentlemen and
ladies, ought to be horrified at one man's seizing another by the
collar and pouncing upon him, regardless of the Marquis of
Queensbury rules. But I know that circumstances alter cases, and in
our life an occasional good shaking was better than the slow justice
of a tedious court-martial.
The General would not smile, but there was a noticeable twisting
of his mustache, and he took himself out of the way to conceal his
feelings, when I pointed my discerning finger at him and said,
"You're laughing, your own self, and you think Tom was right, even if
you don't say a word, and look so dreadfully commandery-officery at
both of us!" The General did not keep himself aloof, and sometimes,
in convivial scenes, when he joined in the increasing hilarity, was so
infused with the growing artificial joviality, and grew jollier and
jollier, that he was accused himself of being the wildest drinker of
them all. But some one was sure to speak up and say, as the
morning approached, "I have sat beside Custer the night through,
and if he's intoxicated it's over water, for he has not tasted a drop of
wine—more loss to him, I say."
Only a short time before the final battle, he dined in New York, at
a house where General McDowell was also a guest. When no one
else could hear, he told me, with a warning not to talk of it, that he
had some one to keep him company, and described the bowl of ice
that stood in the midst of the untouched semicircle of glasses before
General McDowell, and how the ice seemed just as satisfactory as
any of the rare beverages. We listened once to John B. Gough, and
the General's enthusiasm over his earnestness and his eloquence
was enhanced by the well-known fact of his failures, and the plucky
manner in which he started anew. Everybody cries over Jefferson's
Rip Van Winkle, even if they have never encountered drunkenness,
and my husband wept like a child because of his intense sympathy
for the weakness of the poor tempted soul, harrowed as he was by a
Xantippe.
If women in civil life were taken among men, as army women
are, in all sorts of festivities, they would get a better idea of what
strength of purpose it requires to carry out a principle. At some army
posts the women go to the sutler's store with their husbands, for
billiards or amusements. There is a separate room for the soldiers,
so we see nothing of those poor fellows who never can stay sober.
The sutler's is not only the store, but it is the club-house for the
garrison, and I have known posts where the officers were so
guarded about their drinking, that women could go among them and
join in any amusement without being liable to the distress that the
sight of an intoxicated man invariably gives to a sensitive woman. If
I saw drunken soldiers reeling off after pay-day, it was the greatest
possible relief to me to know, that out of hundreds only a few were
married, as but a certain number of the laundresses were allowed to
a company. So no woman's heart was going to be wrung by
unsteady steps approaching her door, and the sight of the vacant
eyes of a weak husband. It took away half the sting and shock, to
know that a soldier's spree was not one that recoiled on an innocent
woman.
As I look back upon our life, I do not believe there ever was any
path so difficult as those men on the frontier trod. Their failures,
their fights, their vacillations, all were before us, and it was an
anxious life to be watching who won and who lost in those moral
warfares. You could not separate yourself from the interests of one
another. It was a network of friendships that became more and more
interwoven by common hardships, deprivations, dangers, by
isolation and the daily sharing of joys and troubles. I am thankful for
the certainty that there is some one who scores all our fights and all
our victories; for on His records will be written the story of the
thorny path over which an officer walked if he reached the goal.
Women shielded in homes, supported by example, unconscious of
any temptation save the mildest, will realize with me what it was to
watch the quivering mouth of a man who voluntarily admitted that
until he was fifty he knew he was in hourly peril of being a drunkard.
The tears blind me as I go back in retrospection and think over the
men that warred against themselves.
In one respect, there never was such a life as ours; it was
eminently one of partings. How natural, then, that the last act before
separation be one of hospitable generosity! How little we had to
offer! It was often almost an impossibility to get up a good dinner.
Then we had so many coming to us from a distance, that our
welcome could not be followed up by any entertainment worthy of
the name. Besides, there were promotions to celebrate, an
occasional son and heir to toast, birthdays occurring so often, and
nothing in the world that answered for an expression of hospitality
and good feeling but an old straw demijohn behind the door. It was
surprising what pertinacious lives the demijohns of the garrison had.
The driver of the wagon containing the few appointments of an
officer's outfit, was just as careful of the familiar friend as one could
wish servants to be with the lares and penates of an æsthetic
household. If he was rewarded with a drink from the sacred
demijohn, after having safely preserved it over muddy roads, where
the mules jerked the prairie-schooner out of ruts, and where, except
for a protecting hand, the contents would have saturated the wagon,
he was thankful. But such was his reverence for what he considered
the most valuable possession of the whole wagon, virtue alone
would have been sufficient reward. When in the regimental movings
the crockery (the very heaviest that is made) was smashed, the
furniture broken, carpets, curtains, clothes and bedding mildewed
and torn, the old demijohn neither broke, spilled nor suffered any
injury by exposure to the elements. It was, in the opinion of our
lovers of good whiskey, a "survival of the fittest."
It never came to be an old story with me, that in this constant,
familiar association with drinking, the General and those of his
comrades who abstained could continue to exercise a marvelous
self-control. I could not help constantly speaking to my husband of
what he went through; and it seemed to me that no liberty could be
too great to extend to men who, always keeping their heads, were
clear as to what they were about. The domestic lariat of a
cavalryman might well be drawn in, if the women waiting at home
were uncertain whether the brains of their liege lords would be
muddled when absent from their influence.
 CHAPTER XIII.
A MEDLEY OF OFFICERS AND MEN.

It was well we had our horses at Fort Riley for recreation, as

walking was almost out of the question in autumn. The wind blew
unceasingly all the five years we were in Kansas, but it seemed to do
its wildest work in autumn. No one had told us of its incessant
activity, and I watched for it to quiet down for days after our arrival,
and grew restless and dull for want of exercise, but dared not go
out. As the post was on a plateau, the wind from the two river
valleys swept over it constantly. The flag was torn into ribbons in no
time, and the storm-flag, made smaller, and used in rainy weather,
had to be raised a good deal, while the larger and handsomer one
was being mended. We found that the other women of the garrison,
who were there when we arrived, ventured out to see one another,
and even crossed the parade-ground, when it was almost impossible
to keep on one's feet. It seems to date very far back, when I recall
that our dresses then measured five yards around, and were
gathered as full as could be pressed into the waistband. These seven
breadths of skirt flew out in advance of us, if they did not lift
themselves over our heads. My skirts wrapped themselves around
my husband's ankles, and rendered locomotion very difficult for us
both, if we tried to take our evening stroll. He thought out a plan,
which he helped me to carry into effect, by cutting bits of lead in
small strips, and these I sewed into the hem. Thus loaded down, we
took our constitutional about the post, and outwitted the elements,
which at first bade fair to keep us perpetually housed.
There was very little social life in garrison that winter. The officers
were busy studying tactics, and accustoming themselves to the new
order of affairs, so very different from their volunteer experience.
Had not everything been so novel, I should have felt disappointed in
my first association with the regular army in garrison. I did not then
consider that the few old officers and their families were really the
regular army, and so was somewhat disheartened regarding our
future associates. As fast as our own officers arrived, a part of the
regiment that had garrisoned Fort Riley before we came went away;
but it soon became too late in the season to send the remainder.
The post was therefore crowded. The best manners with which all
had made their début wore off, and some jangling began. Some
drank too freely, and were placed under arrest, or released if they
went on pledge. Nothing was said, of course, if they were sober
enough for duty; but there were some hopeless cases from the first.
For instance, a new appointee made his entrance into our parlor,
when paying the visit that military etiquette requires, by falling in at
the door, and after recovering an upright position, proceeded to
entangle himself in his sword again, and tumble into a chair. I
happened to be alone, and was, of course, very much frightened. In
the afternoon the officers met in one of their quarters, and drew up
resolutions that gave the new arrival the choice of a court-martial or
his resignation before night; and by evening he had written out the
papers resigning his commission. Another fine-looking man, whom
the General worked long and faithfully to make a sober officer, had
really some good instincts. He was so glad to get into our home
circle, and was so social, telling the drollest stories of far Western
life, where he had lived formerly, that I became greatly interested in
his efforts at reformation. He was almost the first to be court-
martialed for drunkenness on duty, and that was always a grief to
us; but in those early days of our regiment's history, arrest,
imprisonment and trial had to go on much of the time. The officer to
whom I refer was getting into and out of difficulty incessantly. He
repented in such a frank, regretful sort of way that my husband kept
faith in his final reformation long after it seemed hopeless. One day I
asked him to dinner. It was Thanksgiving, and on those days we
tried to select the officers that talked most to us of their homes and
parents. To my dismay, our reprobate came into the room with very
uncertain gait. The other men looked anxiously at him. My husband
was not in the parlor. I thought of other instances where these signs
of intoxication had passed away in a little while, and tried to ignore
his condition. He was sober enough to see the concerned look in his
comrades' faces, and brought the tears to my eyes by walking up to
me and saying, "Mrs. Custer, I'm sorry, but I think it would be best
for me to go home." Who could help being grieved for a man so
frank and humble over his failings? There were six years of such
vicissitudes in this unfortunate man's life, varied by brave conduct in
the Indian campaigns, before the General gave him up. He violated,
at last, some social law that was considered an outrage beyond
pardon, which compelled his departure from the Seventh. That first
winter, while the General was trying to enforce one fact upon the
new-comers, that the Seventh must be a sober regiment, it was a
difficult and anything but pleasant experience.
Very few of the original appointments remained after a few years.
Some who served on to the final battle of 1876, went through many
struggles in gaining mastery of themselves. The General believed in
them, and they were such splendid fighters, and such fine men
when there was anything to occupy them, I know that my husband
appreciated with all his soul what trials they went through in facing
the monotony of frontier life. Indeed, he was himself enduring some
hours of torture from restlessness and inactivity. It is hard to
imagine a greater change than from the wild excitement of the
Virginia campaigns, the final scenes of the war, to the dullness of
Fort Riley. Oh! how I used to feel when my husband's morning
duties at the office were over, and he walked the floor of our room,
saying, "Libbie, what shall I do?" There were no books to speak of,
for the Seventh was then too new a regiment to purchase company
libraries, as we did later. . . . My husband never cared much for
current novels, and these were almost the sole literature of the
households at that time. At every arrival of the mail, there was
absolute contentment for a while. The magazines and newspapers
were eagerly read, and I used to discover that even the
advertisements were scanned. If the General was caught at this, and
accused of it, he slid behind his paper in mock humility, peeping
 roguishly from one side
when a voice, pitched
loftily, inquired whether
reading advertisements
was more profitable than
talking with one's wife? It
was hard enough, though,
when the heaps of
newspapers lay on the
floor, all devoured, and one
so devoted to them as he
was condemned to await
the slow arrival of another
mail. The Harper's Bazar
fashion-pages were not
scorned in that dearth of
reading, by the men about
our fireside. We had
among us a famous
newspaper-reader; the
men could not outstrip her
in extracting everything
that the paper held, and
the General delighted in
hunting up accounts of
"rapscallions" from her
GENERAL CUSTER AT HIS DESK IN HIS native State, cutting out
LIBRARY. the paragraphs, and
sending them to her by an
orderly. But his hour of triumph was brief, for the next mail was sure
to contain an account of either a Michigan or Ohio villain, and the
promptness with which General Custer was made aware of the
vagabondage of his fellow-citizens was highly appreciated by all of
us. He had this disadvantage: he was a native of Ohio, and
appointed to the Military Academy from there, and that State
claimed him, and very proud we were to have them do so; but
Michigan was the State of his adoption during the war, he having
married there, and it being the home of his celebrated "Michigan
brigade." . . . He was enabled, by that bright woman's industry, to
ascertain what a large share of the population of those States were
adepts in crime, as no trifling account, or even a pickpocket was
overlooked. I remember how we laughed at her one day. This friend
of ours was not in the least sensational, she was the very
incarnation of delicate refinement. All her reading (aside from the
search for Ohio and Michigan villains in the papers) was of the
loftiest type; but the blood rose in wild billows over her sweet face
when her son declared his mother such a newspaper devotee that
he had caught her reading the "personals." We knew it was a fib;
but it proves to what lengths a person might go from sheer
desperation, when stranded on the Plains.
Fortunately, I was not called much from home, as there were few
social duties that winter, and we devised all sorts of trumpery
expedients to vary our life. There was usually a wild game of romps
before the day was ended. We had the strangest neighbors. A family
lived on each floor, but the walls were not thick, as the Government
had wasted no material in putting up our plain quarters. We must
have set their nerves on edge, I suppose, for while we tore up stairs
and down, using the furniture for temporary barricades against each
other, the dogs barking and racing around, glad to join in the fracas,
the din was frightful.
The neighbors—not belonging to our regiment, I am thankful to
say, having come from a circle where the husband brings the wife to
terms by brute force—in giving a minute description of the sounds
that issued from our quarters, accounted for the mêlée to those of
the garrison they could get to listen, by saying that the commanding
officer was beating his wife. While I was inclined to resent such
accusations, they struck the General very differently. He thought it
was intensely funny, and the gossip passed literally in at one ear and
out at the other, though it dwelt with him long enough to suggest
something about the good discipline a man might have if the Virginia
law, never repealed, were now in vogue. I felt sure it would fare
badly with me; for, though the dimensions of the stick with which a
man is permitted to beat his wife are limited to the size of the
husband's finger, my husband's hands, though in good proportion,
had fingers the bones of which were unusually large. These strange
fingers were not noticeable until one took hold of them; but if they
were carefully studied, with the old English law of Virginia in mind,
there well might be a family mutiny. I tried to beg off from further
visits to certain families of this stamp, but never succeeded; the
General insisted on my going everywhere. One of the women asked
me one day if I rose early. Not knowing why she asked, I replied
that I feared it was often 9 o'clock before we awoke, whereupon she
answered, in an affected voice, that "she never rose early—it was so
plebeian."
It was very discouraging, this first encounter with what I
supposed would be my life-long associates. There were many
political appointments in the army then. Each State was entitled to
its quota, and they were frequently given for favoritism, regardless
of soldierly qualities. There were also a good many non-
commissioned officers, who, having done good service during the
war, were given commissions in the new regiments. For several years
it was difficult to arrange everything so satisfactorily in social life
that no one's feelings would be hurt. The unvarying rule, which my
husband considered should not be violated by any who truly desired
harmony, was to visit every one in their circle, and exclude no one
from invitations to our house, unless for positively disgraceful
conduct.
We heard, from other posts, of the most amusing and sometimes
the most uncomfortable of experiences. If I knew any one to whom
this incident occurred, I should not venture to make use of it as an
example of the embarrassing situations in the new order of affairs in
the reorganized army. The story is true; but the names, if I ever
knew them, have long since faded out of memory. One of the Irish
laundresses at a Western post was evidently infatuated with army
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