Wednesday 6 August 2014

Warnsdorf Squares and Diamonds Tour

The first thing I noticed on seeing the figures from the Warnsdorf 1823 book, is that the final figure #96 is a tour of squares and diamonds type! This seems to have been added as an afterthought and is preceded by a diagram in which the squares and diamonds are lettered A, B, C, D using a different type style in each quarter of the board.
This confirms Murray's statement that 'The first composer to give the figure which shows that the cells of the quadrant could be filled by four closed quartes was v. Warnsdorf (1823)'. However the diagram is not in graphic form, and strangely Murray made no mention of the accompanying tour!
Warnsdorf shows tours in numerical form. Here is the tour diagram in graphic form:


This means that Warnsdorf has priority in the showing of a tour of squares and diamonds type. The previous earliest examples I was aware of were the two given by "F.P.H" in 1825 and the near-magic tours in the study by C. R. R. von Schinnern in 1826.


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