Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1864-12-21
Wonderful Properties of Fig.
ureS.

versal language among the civilized
nations of the earth, and maintain
such an exalted character for honesty
and truth, that il has passed into a
proverb that Figures never lie," yet
they are treated as the mere slaves
of calculation, without any regard
for that respect and consideration to
which their peculiar qualities entitle
them. 10 rescue them from the de-
grafton of being looked upon as mere
cenveniences, let us see if they are
not possessed of certain properties
which shall excite our wonder and
admiration.
Few people have clear conception
of even "a million of dollars" which
we hear expressed on every side,
whenever the cost ofthis "cruel war"
is under discussion. Let US make
very simple calculation, and see if
we are not astonished ut the result.
Mr.. LongworLh, who recently died
at Cincinnati, was said TO be worth
s15,000,000. How many days would
it take to count that sum, at the rate
of fifty dollars a minute, working
steadily ten hours each day? While
some are guessing four or five days,
another a week, another two weeks
or q month, the operation can be car
ried on mentally by saying fifteen
millions divided by fifty gives three
hundred thousand minutes, divided
by sixty gives FIVE thousand hours,
divided by ten gives five hundred
days! An answer which is sure to
strike your guessers with amaze
ment; a remarkable instance of the
difference between guessing and
thinking.
The powers of the human under
standing are limited. The increase
of figures has no limit. Our knowl-
edge of numbers, therefore, must nee
essarily be limited. But, like every
other subject, the more we study and
think about l., the more we shall
know. A distinguished philosopher,
to whom tho world is indebted for
some of the grandest truths of sci
ence, has said that, without any ex-
traordinary endowments of mind, by
thinking long and deeply on the sub
ject, point after point gradually"un-
folded itself TO the mental vision, until
he was able to comprehend the
mighty laws which control the uni
verse.
The child who has learned to count
as far as three, has an idea of that
number; but the number thirteen is
quite beyond his comprehension
The savage gets along very well with
his arithmetic SO long as he is not re-
quired to go beyond the enumeration
of his fingers and toes; bat any great
er number quite bewilders his mag
ination,- and in despair he refers to
the hairs on his bead, the leaves of
the forest, or the sands of the sea
shore, to express his overwhelming
sense of its magnitude. Every young
student of history has laughed at the
extreme simplicity and ignorance of
the Indian whom Powhatan sent to
England to see the country, and find
out how many people were there. As
soon as the shores of England were
reached, the "poor Indian" procured
a long stick and commenced to cut
notch on 1T for every one be saw. of
course he was soon obliged to stop.
On his return Powhatan, among
other questions, asked how many |
people he had seen. "Count the stars
in the sky" was the reply, "the leaves
on the trees, the sands on the shore,
for such is the number Ufthe English
Perhaps this untutored child of the
forest was not so far astray after all;
fer the stars in both hemispheres yisi-
bic to the naked eye do not exceed
the number of ten thousand. The
hairs of the head and the leaves Of the
trees may be easily counted. and the
sands of the seashore are by no means