Produced by Stephen Schulze, Jonathan Ingram and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
[Transcribers note: Many of the puzzles in this book assume a familiarity with the currency of Great Britain in the early 1900s. As this is likely not common knowledge for those outside Britain (and possibly many within,) I am including a chart of relative values.
The most common units used were:
the Penny, abbreviated: d. (from the Roman penny, denarius) the Shilling, abbreviated: s. the Pound, abbreviated: £
There was 12 Pennies to a Shilling and 20 Shillings to a Pound, so there was 240 Pennies in a Pound.
To further complicate things, there were many coins which were various fractional values of Pennies, Shillings or Pounds.
Farthing ¼d.
Half-penny ½d.
Penny 1d.
Three-penny 3d.
Sixpence (or tanner) 6d.
Shilling (or bob) 1s.
Florin or two shilling piece 2s.
Half-crown (or half-dollar) 2s. 6d.
Double-florin 4s.
Crown (or dollar) 5s.
Half-Sovereign 10s.
Sovereign (or Pound) £1 or 20s.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it should be adequate to solve the puzzles in this book.
Exponents are represented in this text by ^, e.g. '3 squared' is 3^2.
Numbers with fractional components (other than ¼, ½ and ¾) have a + symbol separating the whole number component from the fraction. It makes the fraction look odd, but yeilds correct solutions no matter how it is interpreted. E.G., 4 and eleven twenty-thirds is 4+11/23, not 411/23 or 4-11/23.
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