time. He would give the number of poles, yards, feet, inches, and
barley-corns in a given distance--say, the diameter of the earth's
orbit--and in every calculation he would produce the true answer
in less time than ninety-nine out of a hundred men would take with
their pens. And what was, perhaps, more extraordinary, though
interrupted in the progress of his calculations, and engaged in
discourse upon any other subject, his operations were not thereby
in the least deranged; he would go on where he left off, and could
give any and all of the stages through which the calculation had
passed.

"Thus died Negro Tom, this untaught arithmetician, this untutored
scholar. Had his opportunities of improvement been equal to those
of thousands of his fellow-men, neither the Royal Society of
London, the Academy of Science at Paris, nor even a Newton himself
need have been ashamed to acknowledge him a brother in science."

This obituary was doubtless extracted from a Southern newspaper. A
fact once found is easily found again. I have come across the name of
this unlettered negro prodigy many times since, with the substance of
the facts already stated. In a letter which Dr. Benj. Rush, of
Philadelphia, addressed to a gentleman in Manchester, England, he says
that, hearing of the astonishing powers of Negro Tom, he, in company
with other gentlemen passing through Virginia, sent for him. A
gentleman of the company asked Tom how many seconds a man of seventy
years, some odd months, weeks, and days had lived. He told the exact
number in a minute and a half. The gentleman took a pen, and having
made the calculation by figures, told the negro that he must be
mistaken, as the number was too great. "'Top, massa," said the negro
"you hab left out de leap years." On including the leap years in the
calculation, the number given by the negro was found to be correct.[4]

That Dr. Buchanan did not mention his name is explained by the fact
that he died only six months before; and the audience, who had
doubtless read the obituary notice just recited, or a similar one,
knew who was meant. Besides, he was a native African, and had no name
worth having. He was only Negro Tom. In Bishop Gregoire's work,
however, he is ennobled by the by the name of Thomas Fuller, and in
Mr. Needles' Memoir the name of Thomas Tuller.[5]

Why Dr. Buchanan should have omitted to mention the name of "the New
Orl