New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1878-02-06
"A Significance OF a Billion.

bu7ae.
A Significance or a Billion.
1t would be curious to know now many OF
your readers have brought fully home to
! their inner consciousness the real significance
OF that little word " billion which we have
seen of late so glibly used in your columns.
There are, indeed, few intellects that can
fairly grasp it and digest it as whole; and
there are, doubtless, many thousands who
cannot appreciate its true worth, even when
reduced to fragments for more easy assimila-
| ton. Its arithnetical symbol is simple and
without much pretension; there are no large
hgures-just modest l, followed by dozen
ciphers, and that is all.
Let us briefly take glance at it as meas
ure of time, distance and weight. AS
measure Of time, would take one second as
the unit, and carry myself in thought through
the lapse of ages back to the first day Of the
year of our era, remembering that in all
those years we have 365 days, and in every
day just &c, 400 seconds Of time. Hence, in
returning IN thought back again to this year
OF grace 1878, one might have supposed that
a billion of seconds had long since elapsed;
but this is not SO. We have not even passed
one-slxteenth of that number in all these
long eventful years, for it takes just 31,687
years, II days, 90 hours, 45 minutes, and
seconds to constitute billion Of seconds of
time.
1t is no easy matter to bring under the
cognizance OF the human eve q billion OBJ
jects of any kind. Let us try in magma
ton to arrange this number for inspection,
and for this purpose I would select SOW
ere1gn as familiar object. Let us put one
on the ground and pile upon it as many as
will reach twenty feet in height: then let us
place numbers of similar columns in close
contact, forming straight line, and making
sort of wall twenty feet high, showing on
~ the thin edges of the coin. Imagine two
such walls running parallel to each other
and forming as it we're a long street. We
must then keep on extending these walls
for miles-nay, hundreds of miles-and
still we shall be far short of the required
number. And it is not until we have extern
ted our imagination street to distance of
2,386L miles that we shall have presented
for inspection our one billion of coins.
Or in lieu of this arrangement we may
place them fiat upon the ground, forming
one continuous line like a golden Chain with
every link in close contact. But to do this
we must pass over land and sea, mountain
and valley, desert and plain, crossing the
equator, and returning around the southern
hemisphere through the trackless ocean, re-
trace our way again across the equator, then
still on and on, until we again arrive at our
starting point; and when we have thus
passed golden chain around the huge bulk
Of the earth, we shall be but at the beginning
of our task. We must drag this imaginary
chain no less than 1853 times round the
globe. IF we can further imagine all these
rows of links laid closely side by side, and
every one in contact with its neighbor, we
shall have formed a golden band around
the globe just 50 feet 6 inches wide;
and this will represent. our one
billion of coins. Such a chain, if laid in a
straight line, would reach fraction over
l8,328,445 miles, the weight of which, if
estimated at one-quarter ounce each sover-
eign, would be 6,975,447 tons, and would re-
quire for their transport no less than 1926
ships, each with a full cargo of 5000 tons.
Even then there would be a residue of AT
tons representing 64,O81, 800 sovereigns.
For measure of height let us take much
smaller unit as our measuring rod. The thin
sheets of paper on which these lines are
printed, if laid out fiat and firmly pressed
together as in a well-bound book, would rep
resent a measure of about 1880 Of an inch
in thickness. Let us see how high a dense
pile formed by a billion Of these thin paper
leaves would reach. We must in imagina-
ton, pile them vertically upward, by degrees
reaching to the height Of our. tallest spires;
and, passing these, the pile must still grow
higher, topping the Alps and the Andes and
the highest peaks Of the Hirnalayas, and
shooting up from thence through the heecy
clouds, pass beyond the confines of our at,
tenuated atmosphere, and leap up into the
blue ether with which the blue universe is
filled, standing proudly up far beyond the
reach of terrestrial things; still pile on your
thousands and millions Of thin leaves, for
we are only beginning to rear the mighty
mass. Add millions upon millions of sheets,
and thousands of miles on these, and still
the number will lack its due amount Let
us pause to look at the neat ploughed edges
of the book before u.s., See now closely lie
those thin flakes of paper, how many there
are in the mere width, Of a span, and then
turn your eyes in imagii nation upward to our
mighty column of accumulated sheets. It
now contains its appointed number, and our
one billion sheets of the Times superinposed
upon each other, and pressed into ascompact
mass, has reached an altitude of 47,348
miles!