The posted coordinates will leave you in the middle of nowhere. But...so is the cache! But not at these coordinates.The cache can be found at
38o 08.ABC
77o 40.DEF
A through F can be easily obtained from the information below...
Dust off the old Math Hat!
A. In old England, spices and herbs brought over from the east and America were quite valuable, and one could even use such goods as currency. For example, five ounces of parsley was worth 21 pence, while an equal amount of sage could buy 22 pence worth of goods. Five ounces of rosemary was equal in value to 23 pence, and five ounces of thyme was worth just 24 pence.
How could a man pay off a debt of 19 pence using only parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme?
A=total ounces required.
B. At a recent family gathering, I recorded the following facts:
1. No married person showed up without his or her spouse.
2. There were 16 females there.
3. 1/6 of the group were unmarried males.
4. More than 11 children were present.
5. Nine married couples showed up.
How many children were there? (Children are not married)
B=sum of digits.
C. Al, Bob, Charlie, and Don pooled the jelly beans they received at Eastertime and decided to share them equally.
”There must be a hundred in that pile!” cried Don, but the boys found out after they had sorted them into piles by color and counted them that there were not that many.
”Rats!” commented Al, “One third of them are red. I hate red ones!”
”Too bad only one seventh of them are green. We all like green ones.” said Bob, who never ate yellow ones.
”Let’s split the green ones equally,” suggested Charlie. “I’ll eat any kind except the black ones.”
”I’m glad the smallest pile is orange,” said Don. “The rest of you guys can have those.”
Each boy took his green jelly beans. Then Al took some orange ones, Bob took one more than Al, and Charlie took one more than Bob. Don, of course, took none. Al made up the rest of his share by taking an equal number of the two other colors he liked. Charlie did the same. Now there were only two piles left. Bob took one bean from one pile and the rest of his share from the other pile. Don took all the rest of the beans. How many jelly beans of each color did each boy take?
C=the number of Don’s green jelly beans plus the number of Al’s orange jelly beans.
D. While a glazier was waiting for his assistant to bring the glass he needed to fix a four-foot square window that had been broken, he made some observations about the window itself. He noted that when his ladder was leaned against the house so that its top just touched the top of the broken window, the bottom of the ladder was 8 feet closer to the house than when the ladder was leaned against the bottom of the window. He also saw that if the ladder was pushed flat against the house, the top would reach one foot above the top of the window.
All of these measurements made him wonder how far the window was above ground level, so returning to his shop, he measured the ladder and found out. Still, he could have saved himself the trouble of measuring the ladder, for even without that information, the distance can be computed. What is it?
D=the sum of the digits in the answer.
E. When Mr. Ryder pulled into the local gas station and demanded exactly five gallons of gasoline, the attendant, Mr. Filler, was put on the spot. Ever since the gas pump had broken down, he had been using three old buckets to pour gas into the customers’ tanks. The green bucket could hold three more gallons than the blue bucket, and the red bucket could hold as many gallons as the other two together. Unfortunately none of the buckets could hold exactly 5 gallons.
But Mr. Filler, who knew the amounts the three buckets held, had worked out a system to measure out exactly five gallons with the buckets. First, he filled the red bucket to the brim. Then he filled the green bucket from the gas in the red bucket. After filling the blue bucket from the contents of the green, he emptied the gas now in the blue bucket back into the red bucket.
Next he emptied the contents of the green bucket into the blue, refilled the green bucket with gas from the red bucket, and poured from the green bucket into the blue bucket enough gas to to fill the latter. (By now Mr. Ryder had left to find a more efficient gas station.) After these manipulations, the combined contents of the red and blue buckets was exactly five gallons.
How many gallons of gasoline can each bucket hold?
E = Least significant digit of gallons of the sum of the green and blue buckets.
F. Johnny has just received a large bag of marbles (some geocacher has lost his marbles…) In the bag there are 2 more red marbles than green ones, twice as many blues as reds, and the number of whites is the square of the number of blues. There are two less oranges than whites, half as many yellows as oranges, and the number of blacks is the square root of the number of yellows. If there were less than 1500 marbles in the bag, just how many marbles were there?
F = least significant digit.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.
NOTE: These puzzles are from a collection of mine from many years ago. I have solved them all, but the brain cells I used to solve them have long since disappeared. Knowing the ages of some of the "more experienced" cachers, I am willing to give generous hints on 33.3333333333% of the answers, as long as proof of age is provided.