es of cutting-out puzzles, some very easy
and others difficult, I propose to consider one family alone--those
problems involving what is known as the Greek cross with the square.
This will exhibit a great variety of curious transpositions, and, by
having the solutions as we go along, the reader will be saved the
trouble of perpetually turning to another part of the book, and will
have everything under his eye. It is hoped that in this way the article
may prove somewhat instructive to the novice and interesting to others.

GREEK CROSS PUZZLES.

"To fret thy soul with crosses."

SPENSER.

"But, for my part, it was Greek to me."

_Julius Caesar_, i. 2.

Many people are accustomed to consider the cross as a wholly Christian
symbol. This is erroneous: it is of very great antiquity. The ancient
Egyptians employed it as a sacred symbol, and on Greek sculptures we
find representations of a cake (the supposed real origin of our hot
cross buns) bearing a cross. Two such cakes were discovered at
Herculaneum. Cecrops offered to Jupiter Olympus a sacred cake or _boun_
of this kind. The cross and ball, so frequently found on Egyptian
figures, is a circle and the _tau_ cross. The circle signified the
eternal preserver of the world, and the T, named from the Greek letter
_tau_, is the monogram of Thoth, the Egyptian Mercury, meaning wisdom.
This _tau_ cross is also called by Christians the cross of St. Anthony,
and is borne on a badge in the bishop's palace at Exeter. As for the
Greek or mundane cross, the cross with four equal arms, we are told by
competent antiquaries that it was regarded by ancient occultists for
thousands of years as a sign of the dual forces of Nature--the male and
female spirit of everything that was everlasting.

[Illustration: Fig. 5.]

The Greek cross, as shown in Fig. 5, is formed by the assembling
together of five equal squares. We will start with what is known as the
Hindu problem, supposed to be upwards of three thousand years old. It
appears in the seal of Harvard College, and is often given in old works
as symbolical of mathematical science and exactitude. Cut the cross into
five pieces to form a square. Figs. 6 and 7 show how this is done. It
was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that we found that
the cross might be transformed into a square in only four pieces. Figs.
8 and 9 will show how to do it, if we further require the four pieces to
be all of the same siz