OUR PARIS LETTER.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3894, 22 June 1881, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

(FBOM OXTJB OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

Paris, March 31, 1881 SCIENTIFIC.

Calculating Phenomena. — Pressas, in the department of Lot et Garonne, possesses a calculator named Bourillow, who performs mentally the most difficult arithmetical problems, like Vito Mangiamele, Henri Mondeuse, &c. Multiplications, divisions, extractions of the square or cube root, are child's play with him. He was asked how many minutes had elapsed since the commencement of the Christian era down to the present time. In two minutes the calculation was' made. M. Julien Vinson, Professor at the School of Oriental languages, fjiTes more complete details of the young Italian, Jacques Inaudi, who also performs difficult sums in his head, with the peculiar circumstance that he occupies more time than by the usual methods.' M. Vinson has discovered the system employed by luaudi, and makes it the subject of a communication to the Anthropological Society. Let us suppose, he says, that the boy is asked to multiply 9,876 by 325 He sees at ouce that the product will consist of seven figures.' Then, commencing on the left hand side, 'he multiplies 9 by 3, which gives 27; next Bby 3, which gives 24, and before going? further he adds the two partial products together, putting back one column the first figure of the second number, as follows: —

2,700,000 240,000

2,940,000

Continuing the operation, he multiplies the last two figures (7 and (i) of the multiplicand, and adds each new product, 21,000 and 1,800, to the previous product, again putting back each figure one column. That done, he has to multiply in the gotne manner all the figures of the multiplicand, first by the second figure of the multiplicator, and then by the third. But in this particular case, Inaudi finds it more easy, the second figure being a 2, to double all the multiplicand and add the product to the first partial product; and the last figure of the multiplicator being a 5, to add a 0 to the mulliplicaud and then divide by 2. It therefore appears that the common practice has nothing to learn from that employed by the boy, and that his method consists solely of his | extraordinary memory, which forms the principal feature of his mental organisation. Dr Broca is said to have never been able to make Inaudi comprehend that a number terminating by a 6 cannot be the product of one terminating by a 5. VARIETIES. .The Keoumtks.—A glance at the map of the Regency of Tunis, as kept by the War Department, reveals at the northwest angle of Tunis and near the French frontiers a vast blank space. No names of places are to be seen there, even the mountains are not marked out, and hypothetical lines indicate the possible course of two rivers, the sources and mouths of which are known, though their actual course is not. This terra incognita is inhabited by independent tribes forming the Eroumir Confederation. Like the Jiabyles of Algeria, they are Berbers by race and language, and form with the natives of the Aure's that variety of the Berber family styled ChaTuia. The earliest

accounts represent them as remaining independent among their mountains. To the north west of their territory they hare an outlet to the sea by the French port La Calla, and to the south-east their principal market is the Tunisian city Bega. Their independence is complete, the troops of the Bey of Tunis never having been able to penetrate into their country. They are more their own masters, in fact, than were, before the French conquest, the Kabyles of Great Kabylia, whom the Turks had been unable to subdup. „„ .Thei... latter indeed, to make incursions into Great ;- Kabylia, while the Tunisian troops have \ never dared to venture into the land of \ the Kroumirs. The Turks, -moreover, \ had at least taken possession of the Sebaon Valley in Great Kabylia, where they installed a tribe of horseman, the Ammenaonra, who cut the communication between the masses of mountains, whilst, on the contrary, the two Valleys of Oued Zaine and Oued Zaia Berber are, like the mountain, held solely by the Kroumirs.

Famous Helics':*—Aa interesting ceremony takes place every seven years at Aix la Ohapelle, the did Carlovingian city, when a pilgrimage is made to the Cathedral, where the famous relies are exhibited for the adoration of the faithful. That solemuity will be repeated in the course of this summer. It always attracts immensei crowds, principally of inhabitants from The "rural districts, and in 1874 (the date of the last pilgrimage) more than half a million strin^e&Msited the ancient city. Notre Dame, of Aix la Chapelle, founded by Charlemagne, is* one of the finest existing.' monuments of Roman architecture. The tomb of the Emperor is ioJbiie nave under the cupola, and bears the simple inscription, " Carlo JVJagno." ' AboutVit hangs a gilded lustre, a" present from the Emperor, Frederick* Barbarossa. Thfc j'\ Sehatzkammer" or treasurery is a perfect museum of articles of the middle ages. It comprises also the relics on which Charlemagne took the oaths at his coronation. These are divided into the greater relics and the lesßer. The former in ordiuary times are only showed to sovereigns, and are carefully preserved in silk wrappers, which each time the relics are displayed are cut up and distributed to the faithful. , Among them are the woollen petticoat worn by the Virgin Mary at the birth of Christ, the swaddling clothes in which the child was wrapped in the manger,; the cloth on which ■ John the Baptist was beheaded, the garment whteh was about the loins of the Saviour on the cross, and the handkerchief tbat was around his head in the tomb. Among the smaller relics are -the. leathern girdle of Christ, the two ends' of; which were stamped by Charlemagne wish his seal, and seal, and the impress is well preserved; a part of> the cords 'with which Christ was bound, a fragment of one of the nails: with- whiclj;^|ie was attached on the cross, a, part? jbf the sponge with which His thirst, .was assuaged, and a girdle of the V^rgj^; Mary. All these relics, which Cnasemagne received from John, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and from Haroun-al-Kaschid, under whose, reign the Arabian Nights■' was written, are kept in gilded or silvered chests and magnificently-chased roses. The treasure also contains the skulk and armbones of Charlemagne,' his ivory hunting horn, and the gold plates which formerly covered the Parian marble sarcophagus, in which his ashes were deposited. The sarcophagus itself is preserved in a cupboard. This ceremony of the exposition of the relics will take take place from the" 10th to the 27th July. ■ .-,-;; , .;.■'. ,