could be made more productive to him than a mortgaged farm; and, accordingly, he took him to a neighboring town, where a court was in session, and thence to Montpelier, where the legislature was assembled. There, in the presence of judges, lawyers, and legislators, the boy performed such astounding feats in mental arithmetic, that the report of his exploits was spread over the world. During this first year of his exhibition he solved such questions as the following, in periods of time varying from three seconds to one minute : - "How many seconds are there in 2,000 years?" Answer: 63,072,000,000. "How many strokes will a clock strike in 2,000 years?" Answer: 113,880,000. "What is the product of 12,225, multiplied by 1,223?" Answer: 14,951,175. "What is the square of 1,449?" Answer: 2,099,601. "In seven acres of corn, with 17 rows to each acre, 64 hills to each row, 8 ears to each hill, and 150 kernels to each ear, how many kernels are there?" Answer: 9,139,200. Practice gave him greater facility. The next year he performed such problems as these: "How many hours are there in 1,811 years?" Answer (in twenty seconds): 15,864,360. "How many seconds in 11 years?" Answer (in four seconds): 346,896,000. "What sum, multiplied by itself, will produce 998,001?" Answer (in three seconds): 999. "How many hours in 38 years 2 months and 7 days?" Answer (in six seconds): 334,488. Besides performing these calculations, the boy showed equal quickness in detecting arithmetical tricks and puzzles, such as the following: "Which is the most, twice twenty-five or twice five and twenty (2×5+20)?" Answer (in a moment) : Twice twenty-five. "Which is the most, six dozen dozen or half a dozen dozen? Answer: Six dozen dozen. "How many black beans will make five white ones?" "Five," said the boy, "if you skin them." The astonishment everywhere excited by this prodigy, our aged readers may still recollect. Some people thought him a conjurer. A woman came to him one day, saying that twenty years ago she had had some spoons stolen, and asked him where they were. One good lady said that, in her opinion, God had endowed the child with a miraculous gift in order that he might explain the mysterious numbers of the prophecies. Some people manifested a certain degree of terror in his presence, as though he were possessed of the devil. What added to the marvel was, that the boy was totally unable to explain the processes by which he effected his calculations. God put it into my head," he said, one day, to an inquisitive lady, "but I cannot put it into yours." Some gentlemen of Boston offered to undertake the education of the boy, that this wonderful talent might be cultivated. But the foolish father, thinking he could gain more by exhibiting his son, refused the offer. The public, disapproving this selfish conduct, were less inclined than before to attend the exhibitions; and therefore, after an unprofitable tour in the South, Abia Colburn took his son to England. In London, where he was exhibited for two or three years, his performances were almost incredibly difficult. Princes, nobles, philosophers, teachers, and the public were equally astounded. He gave, in less than half a minute, the number of seconds that had elapsed since the Christian era. He extracted the square root of numbers consisting of six figures, and the cube root of numbers consisting of nine figures, in less time than the result could be put down on paper. He was asked one day the factors of 171,395. There are seven pairs of factors by which that number can be produced, and only seven; the boy named them all as rapidly as they could be recorded. He was required to name the factors of 36,083. "There are none," was his instantaneous reply; and he was right. Again, the number, 4,294,967,297, was proposed to him to find the factors. Now, certain French mathematicians had asserted that this was a prime number; but the German, Euler, had discovered that its factors are 641 and 6,700,417. This wonderful boy, then aged eight years, by the mere operation of his mind, named the factors in about twenty seconds. He was once requested to multiply 999,999 by itself. At first he said he could not do it. But, in looking at the number again, he perceived that multiplying 37,037, by 37,037, and the product twice by 27, was just the same as multiplying 999,999 by 999,999. How he discovered this is a mystery, but he soon gave the correct answer: 999,998,000,001. Then he said he could multiply that by 49, which he immediately did, and the product by 25, producing at length the enormous result of 60,024,879,950,060,025. He could raise numbers consisting of one figure to the sixteenth power in less than a minute. Though these exploits excited universal wonder in England, the exhibition of the boy, owing to the great expenses attending it, were not very profitable and gradually became less so. At length the benevolent Earl of Bristol engaged to undertake the education of the child at Westminster school, agreeing to pay seven hundred and fifty dollars a year for eight years. But Zerah showed no remarkable aptitude for study, not even in arithmetic and geometry. Meanwhile the father lived in poverty. Thinking still to make a profit from the boy, he took him away from school and carried him to France, where he was again exhibited, but without success. Some gentlemen of Paris procured from Napoleon his admission to a military school; but the meddling father again interfered and returned with him to London. The patience of their English friends being then exhausted, they sunk into extreme poverty. Colburn then urged his son to go upon the stage as an actor, and he had still influence enough to procure for the youth instruction from no less a person than Charles Kemble. For a year or two Zerah led the life of a strolling actor, playing in tragedy and comedy, writing plays which no manager would accept, and living always in great poverty. Then he opened a small school, and gained a little money by performing calculations for an astronomer. At length, being relieved of the incubus of his worthless father, who died, the liberality ot the Earl of Bristol enabled him to return to America, where he found his mother still living upon her farm. He was then twenty-one years of age, After spending a short time in teaching, he became a Methodist preacher, and remained in that vocation till his death. He died in Vermont in 1839, aged 34 years. Neither as a preacher nor as a man did he display even average ability. He was, in fact, a very dull preacher, and a very ordinary person in every respect. As he grew older his calculating power diminished; but this was merely from want of practice. Doubtless, he could have retained his ability if he had continued to use it. He was able, during the later years of his youth, to explain the processes by which he performed his calculations, some of which were so simple that they have since been employed in the New England schools. We have seen a class of boys, not more than twelve years of age, multiply six figures by six figures, without slate and pencil, by the method of Zerah Colburn. His mode of extracting the square root, also, can be acquired by boys quick at figures. But this does not lessen our astonishment that a boy of seven years, wholly untaught, should have discovered methods in calculation that had escaped the vigilance of mathematicians, from the days of Euclid to our own time. JOHN ADAMS. PEOPLE are mistaken who suppose that we have in America no old families. We have perhaps as many as other countries, only the torrent of emigration, and the suddenness with which new fortunes are made and lost, conceal the fact from our observation. The Adams family, for example, which descended from Thomas Adams, one of the first proprietors of Massachusetts, has gone on steadily increasing in wealth and numbers from 1620 to the present time, and the family estate still comprises the lauds originally bought by the Adams who was grandfather to the second President of the United States. John Adams died worth one hundred thousand dollars. His son, John Quincy Adams, left, it is said, twice as much; and his son, Charles Francis Adams, now minister to London, is supposed to be worth two millions. John Adams was born October 19, 1735. His father, who was also named John, was a farmer in good cirnumstances; and, following the custom of such in Massachusetts, he resolved to bring up one of his sons to the ministry, and sent him to Harvard College. In those days distinction of rank was so universally recognized that the students at Harvard or Yale were recorded and arranged according to the rank and dignity of their parents. I suppose the son of the governor would have taken precedence of all the rest, unless there chanced to be in the college a scion of the English aristocracy. John Adams, in a class of twentyfour, ranked fourteenth. On state occasions, when the class entered a room, he would have gone in fourteenth. His grandson tells us, that he would not have held even as high a rank as this, but that his mother's ancestors were persons of greater consequence than his father's. This custom of arranging the students |