How I longed to learn what interval of time had gone over! I tried to calculate it by remembering that it was early summer when I came, but still the trees wore no tokens of coming autumn. They were bright in foliage, and leafy, and the streams that traversed the valley were small and tiny rills that showed no touch of the season of rains. From these observations I now addressed myself to an inspection of the interior. Well used as I had been to habits of poverty, the aspect of this chamber still struck me with astonishment. The only thing like food was some Indian cornmeal carefully covered up in an iron vessel, and a jar of water; of clothing, the cloak which formed the window-curtain, and a sheepskin fashioned into a rude resemblance to a coat, were all that were to be seen. The furniture consisted of a low stool and a single chair, the trunk of an elm-tree representing a table. On this, however, an attempt at a desk had been made, and here, to my astonishment, were now masses of papers covered with figures from top to bottom,--algebraic signs and calculations without end! Not one word of writing, not a phrase in any language, was to be met with, but page after page of these mystical sums, which seemed to be carried on from one sheet of paper to the other. How eagerly I sought out something which might give me a clew to the writer of these figures, but in vain; I pored over them long and carefully, I studied their form and their size. I tried--how hopelessly!--to trace out some purpose in the calculations, and to divine their object and end; but to no avail! I had heard tell of persons whose intellects had been deranged by the intense study of a difficult problem, the search after some unattainable object in science. I had read wonderful stories of long years of toilsome labor,--whole lives passed in an arduous struggle, till death had at last relieved them from a contest with the “impossible.” Could the writer of these be the victim of such a delusion? Might he have sought out this lone spot, to live apart and away from all the distracting influences of life, and to devote himself to some such task? Had his mind given way under this pressure, or had weakened faculties first led to this career? All these doubts presented themselves to me in turns; and again I turned to the complex pages of figures to assist my conjectures.