This is unusually complex for a 19th Century educational and set-collection game. Its 40 cards are individually numbered (in historical order) and grouped in sets of four. Each card has a date at the top, a title name and date, and then three events, the first political and the other two marks of "social progress", each with its own date. The date at the top is the mean or average date of the three events on the card. The rules provide for four variations: Historian; Biographer; Librarian; and Steps of Progress. In each case, the deck is fully dealt out to the players. The player to the left of the dealer chooses one card from his hand, and reads out part of its content. Depending on the variation, this could be the name at the top and/or one or more events. The other players in turn submit one of their cards face down, aiming to have the date at its top as close as possible to the mean date of the card read. The player who submits the card closest to the target card's date collects all the cards, and players who were off by more than 100 years pay an extra penalty card. If everyone misses by 100 years or more, the card's reader collects them all. The winner of the game is generally the first to accumulate 20 cards in hand. One variation involves an additional set of "group cards", which show the four individuals in each of the ten groups. In this version, one player acts as "umpire" who keeps the deck reads to the group the mean date and three events of one card at a time. The rest of the players, using the "group cards", write down a name they believe closest in time to the mean date. The closest guess wins all the cards named from the deck.