Old Chestnuts

Four people are travelling in a passenger compartment on a train during W.W.II: an elderly French lady, a very beautiful young French lady, a young Frenchman, and a young German soldier. There are no other people or animals in the compartment. The train enters a tunnel, and in the darkness there is the sound of a kiss and the sound of someone being hit.
After a few seconds the train emerges from the tunnel, with the German soldier rubbing his jaw. What happened, and what is each person thinking?

A merchant was going to a market, carrying in his cart twelve large clay jars filled with vegetable oil. It started raining heavily, and the roads became impassable. So he turned into the nearest farm and asked the peasant to keep the jars for him. After a fortnight the merchant came back, but as he was reloading the jars from the cellar to his cart, he opened them, and discovered that 6 jars were only half full. "Oh, you swindler", shouted the merchant. "You have stolen my oil!" "Swindler yourself", the peasant replied. "They were half full when you gave them to me!"
Can you find a way to determine which of the two was lying?

A scientist uses 3 lamps to illuminate experiments in his laboratory. They are currently turned off and, unfortunately, the switches for each of them are off and in a different room, from where you cannot see into the lab. He visits the room with the switches once, does as he pleases with the switches, then goes back to his laboratory. Without anyone else's help he is then able to identify exactly which light switch turns on which lamp. So how does he do it? And can you do it with four or five light bulbs?

Three Light Bulbs II

A team of the best scientists in the world has gathered for a unique occasion. They have recovered the body of a man, completely nude and encased in ice. The prehistoric man seems to be in remarkable condition, no damage has occurred to the body since the begining of time. After closely examining the body for no more than a few hours they come to the conclusion that this prehistoric man MUST be "Adam", the first man ever. What drives them to this conclusion and why?

This puzzle arises from a short humorous piece which Lewis Carroll wrote; I believe it was a dialogue. In the dialogue, he convinces the straight man that the non-moving clock is better than a clock that loses one minute a day. What do you think?

A woman enters a hardware store, brings an item up to the counter and asks "How much are these?". The man behind the counter replies "25 ct each", so the woman says she will take two hundred and fifty. She then gives the man a dollar and gets 25 ct change. What did she buy?

Four men are walking in a forest. They come to a path. They must all get to the other side, but only two (two maximum) can travel at the same time (so no dragging anyone or anything). It is night, so they require a flashlight but there is only one flashlight. The four men are of differing physical strength, one man can walk the distance in 1 minute, the second in 2 minutes, the third in 5 minutes and the fourth man in 10 minutes. How do the men all get across in 17 minutes.

You are a cavalier, riding your horse in search of a princess to rescue. You arrive at a castle that has two doors. The doors cannot be opened from the outside. There is an inscription between the doors that reads:

A small street has five differently coloured houses in it. Five men of different nationalities live in these five houses. The houses are numbered left to right. Each man has a different profession, likes a different drink, and owns a different pet. We have the following information:

1. The Spaniard has a dog.
2. The Japanese is a painter.
3. The violinist drinks fruit juice.
4. The diplomat lives in the yellow house.
5. The owner of the green house drinks coffee.
6. The Norwegian lives next door to the blue house.
7. The Norwegian lives in the first house on the left.
8. The Italian drinks tea.
9. The sculptor breeds snails.
10. The Englishman lives in the red house.
11. The owner of the middle house drinks milk.
12. The fox is in a house next to the doctor's.
13. The horse is in a house next to the diplomat's.
14. The green house is immediately to the right of the white house.

The question is, who has the zebra and who drinks water?

There are 5 houses in 5 different colours. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. These five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar and keep a certain pet. No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar or drink the same beverage. The question is: Who owns the fish?

Clues:
*The Brit lives in the Red house.
* The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
* The Dane drinks tea.
* The Green house is left of the white house.
* The Green house's owner drinks coffee.
* The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
* The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill.
* The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
* The Norwegian lives in the first house.
* The man who smokes blends lives next to the one who keeps cats .
* The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
* The owner who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer.
* The German smokes Prince.
* The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
* The man who smokes blend has a neighbour who drinks water.

A man is walking along a road one day when he comes to a fork in it. He knows that down one fork lies the land of the flesh eating air breathing haddocks, and down the other lies a nice place. He also knows that he is likely to meet one of two men at this fork. One will always lie and the other is always truthful. One of the men speaks a language where yes is pling and no is plong. The other man speaks another language where yes is plong and pling is no.

As expected he doesn't know which man speaks which language, or who tells the truth. What question should he ask?