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48. INDIAN ARCHIMEDES
The king of Vasantapura was on the look out for a man with an extraordinary intelligence for the ministership in his government. He therefore devised a test. He brought an elephant to a public park in the town and announced that the person who gave him the correct weight of the bulky animal would be rewarded with an excellent employment in his government. In response to this announcement, a certain man came up to demonstrate his intelligence. He took the elephant to a big boat in a lake. He marked on the outside of the boat the level upto which the boat sunk in the water when the elephant was on the boat. Then the elephant was brought back on the bank and huge boulders were put on the boat to make it sink exactly to the level to which it had sunk when the elephant was on it. Then he emptied the boat and weighed all the boulders. This way he could tell the king the exact weight of the elephant. The king was satisfied and he appointed the man to the ministerial post.
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