2 March 1815
adams-john10 Neal Millikan Recreation
229

2. V:45. The noise at the close of the Ball gave me this morning two hours more of leisure than I have been accustomed to for the last fortnight, and I had time to write to Mr Harris, and partly bring up the arrears of this Journal— Zerah Colburn came this morning, with his father and another man, whose name was not mentioned to me— The boy was born 1 September 1804. and has it would seem a faculty for the composition and decomposition of numbers, by inspiration. His father says he discovered it in him in August 1810. when he was not quite six years old and had never learnt the first rules of Arithmetic— Even now he cannot do a common sum in the rule of three but he can by a mental operation of his own, extract the roots of any power and any number, and name the factors by which any given number is produced— I asked him what it was that had first turned his attention to the combinations of numbers; he said he could not tell. His father says that having arrived here in August last he already speaks French in perfection, and has acquired great knowledge of the German— His method of compounding numbers and extracting roots is a discovery, of which an account is to be published in a quarto volume with a biography of the boy which is to be written by a Mr Barlow in England— The method however the father says he has not yet revealed to Mr Barlow— The quarto is to be published by subscription, and I readily subscribed for a copy— By the assistance of Mr Erving, an opportunity has been given for Zerah to be educated at the Polytechnic school, and the father expressed himself much satisfied with it— I told him I thought he could not obtain a better chance for his education, and strongly recommended it to him to avail himself of it— The father is a plain New-England farmer, and to all appearance a very ordinary man— His language is that of our most 230uneducated people, and his principal anxiety seemed to be to get a picture of Zerah to send home to America, as a present to Congress— I advised him rather to send it to the President— Zerah is certainly an astonishing and promising boy— But if his promise is ever to realize any thing corresponding to it, the sooner his father commits him to the tuition of the polytechnic school the better. After writing until 2. O’Clock I took a long walk and then spent an hour at the National Museum— I barely reached the end of the Halls when four O’Clock came, and I was obliged to turn about and come home— After dinner I went to the Odeon theatre, and saw the first Night of a Comedy in 5 Acts, in verse, called La journée des dupes ou l’envie de parvenir. Its success was not so complete as that of Felicie at the Opera Comique, and there were some stormy moments in the course of the play— It finished however with much applause— The author’s name was demanded, and announced to be Mr Armand Charlemagne— There was a short concert afterwards by the Italian performers—indifferent— I met at the theatre a Frenchman whom in 1810 and 1811. I had often seen at Mr Reimbert’s— He told me he had left Russia in 1812 when the war broke out. Had been taken prisoner at the passage of the Beresina, and sent with the Chevalier Brancia to Voronetz, where they were detained until last October— He has been here about two months and left Brancia sick at Wilna.

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