Catch Questions

lí a goose weighs 10 pounds and a hall its owa weight, what is the weight of the goose? Who has not been tempted to reply on tho instant 15 pounds? the correct answer being, of oourse, 20 pounds. It is astonishing what a very simple query will sometimes catch a wise man napping. Even the following have been known to succeed: How many days would it take to cut up a piece of oloth 50 yarda long, one yard being cut off every day? A snail climbing up a pole 20 feet high ascenda five feet every day and alips down four feet every night. How long will the snail take to reach the top of the post? A wise man having a window one yard high and one yard wide, requiring more light, enlarged his window to twice its former size, yet the window was still only one yard high and one yard wide. How was this done? This is a catch question in geometry, as the preceding were catch question in arithmetic. The window was diamond shaped at first and was af terward made square. As to the two former, perhaps it is scarcely necessary serioualy to point out that the answer to the first is not 50 days, but 49, and to the second not 20 days, but 16, since the snail, who gains one foot each day for 15 days, climbs on the sixteenth day to the top of the