Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1863-04-11

II Ss psf auuuulI compound interest
until the end of the year 1860. How man
l.dollars would you receive. and wbsr, SjS.1
would you find room enough to store ava,
lts value in gold 7? i{tisif :
thinking that it might beinterestinp Ia
many of the Intelligent young readers ot
the LeogeF to trace the history of this small
beginning to its present enormous growth.
have amused myself during some leisnre
hours by making the following curious
calculation. Eaiie - 1sS0eT5 81
Money at six per cent per annum. COM
pound interest, Doubles itself in a 'trif1e
less than twelve years. For the sake Of
convenience, and otkeep withinthe limits
OF this calculation, Z we will say twelve
years Then the principal, One Cent VIII
De doubled one hundred and My frs times
10 eighteen hundred and sixty years. This
Increase is foundby laboriods COMPUTATION
70 reach the enormous sum of four huns
dred and fifty ffty-six lredeclllto,tg of dol
Rtl1am0utit so ineonceiyably great as
% req qntre toT It's expression line Of foTfg-
IRE places of sEos, eih l3 81
Being quite esttain that all the gold
bf1ughI from itI of npRir, iull tkS
AySl Of - ths Pacto1eatI D stream6
that ever enFicheds IA CEtesus, all thewealth
of Plutu'B nfuet all the gold ever seen by
mortal eye, all the hidden treasure yet to
be discoyeredj will be but drop in the
ocean, let us try to form some idea of the
.qpantity of gold required, by borrowing
the philosophers stone, aud changing the
whole world into one solid mass Of virgin
gold, and sthen see it we should have
enough for our purpose. 21l Is
Estimating pure gold. to be worth 16
dollars an ounce a moderate estini6tioniri
these days of1apecnlation and high premi-
INNS, d cubic f6ot of the precious metal
will esworths 280,O00 dollars. This fact
being aseertdfned, the value of any given
quantity ofgold may readily be computed,
and the world is found to be worth 10 ZOO
septttti0as of dollars, a sum requiring tlpen-
tg-Rfne places of figures If the reader
wtlliuow compare the value of our golden
globedwith the amount of interest derived
from he1insignificant little cent, he will
h1d that 42, 420 billions of golden worlds
will ltbe necessary to satisfy our demand.
Let us now try if there is matter enough
inEthe btightsun itself, which, these pleas
ant Spring mornings, can easily be imag=
ined TO be made of FURNISHED gold. The
SON ZOO times larger than all the planets
and their satellites together, and, if it were
hollow sphere, l40O thousdnd globes like
ours might be dropped within its capa-
cious cavern but yet we must have sc, 800
millions of golden suns to answer the oues-
ton.
Finding that we cannot arrive at any
appreciable quantity of matter to be con.
yerted into gold, that will give, us any
idea of the magnitude of the sum under
consideration, let us imagine q sphere
large enough to contain $500 millions of
sun we shall then have enough gold to
cancel the claims Of our iakezsstiad little
a golden glebe of such prodieious di-
mensions must have diameter of 9 75O |
millions of miles. Suppose we consider
the sun as the centre of this ponderous
mass; them by travelling ont far away into
the regions of space, 475 millions of miles !
beyond the orbit of Saturn, the most in. |
teresttng of all the planets Of the Solar |
System, and distant from the sun 900 mil I
lions of miles, we shall reach point, at |
whose distance from the sun, through the
realms of ether, we can describe the ma
jestic sweep of a circle; which may be con :,
celyed to be the circumference of the
mighty globe, which, in imagination, we
are endeavoring to fiud. So extensive is
the tFacktof this circle, that it would take
the best team of trotters in the Ledger |,
stable, going alta 2:30 gait, $4,000 years,
to spin around it.
Thisg globe. then would require the sun
for golden centre, all the space between
it and the orbit of Mercury, to be of gold,
all the space between Mercury and Venus,
all the space between Venus and this par.
ticleSof golden sand, the Earth, and SO on
to Mars, Jupiter and beyond Saturn, swal.
lowing up planets and their satellites, the
asteroids, and space itself, forming one |.
stppendons golden ball, reaching out, in all |,
directions, from its centre, the sun, to the
distance Of one thousand three hundred aud l
seventy-fve millions of miles.
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