The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1878-01-31
A BILLION.
The Real Significance of that Little Word.

A BILLION.
The Real Significance of that Little Word.
It would be curious TO know how many
of your readers have brought fully home
to their inner consciousness the real sig
nifcance 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,
4 doubtless, many thousands who cannot
appreciate its true work, even when re-
duced to fragments for more easy assimi-
lation. Its arithmetical symbol is SIM
pie and without much pretension there
are no large fgures-just modest l
followed by'a dozen ciphers, and that
is all.
Let us briefly take glance at it as a
measure of time, distance, and weight.
As measure of time, I 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
| 86,40O seconds of time. Hence, in re-
turning in thought back again to this
year Of grace, 1878, one might have sup
posed that billion of seconds had long
since elapsed, but this is not 80. We
have not even passed one-sixteenth of
that number in all these eventful years,
for it takes just 31,6S7 years, II days,
22Thours, Is minutes, and 3 seconds to
constitute billion of seconds of time.
| It's no easy matter to bring under the
cosnizance of the human eye billion
objects of any kind. Let us try in i'm
agination to arrange this number for in.
spection, aud for this purpose I'would
select sovereign as familir 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 num-
bers Of similar columns in close contact,
| forming straight line, and making a
sort Of wall twenty feet high, showing
fonly the thin edges of the coin. Imagine
two such. walls running parallel to each
other and forming, as. it were, a long
street. We must then keep on extend
ing 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 extended our imaginary
street to a distance of 2,386} 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 golden chain,
with every link ip 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, retraee our way
again across the equator, then still on
and on, until we again arrive at our
starting point; and we have thus passed
a golden chain around the huge bulk OF
the earth, we shall be but at the begin
ming of our task. We must drag this
imaginary chain no less than 1853 times
round the globe. If we can further i'm,
age all these rows of links laid closely
side by side, and every. one in contact t.
with its neighbor, we shall have formed
a golden band around the globe just 81
feet 6 inches wide; and this will repre-
sent our, one billion of coins. Such q
chain, if laid in straight line, would
reach a fraction over 18,328,445 miles,
the weight of which, if estimated at one
quarter ounce each sovereign, would be
6,975,447 tons, and would require for
their transport no less than 1925 ships,
each with a full cargo of $1,000 tons.
Even then there would be residue of
Al tons, representing 64,0Sl, ,92O sover-
eigns.
For a measure of height let us take 8
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 we'll
bound book, would represent measure
of about, l.333d of an inch in thickness.
Let us see how high dense pile formed
by a billion of these thin paper leaves
would reach, We must, in imagination,
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
Himalayas, and, shooting up from thence
through the feecy clouds, pass beyond
| the confines of our attenuated atmos-
phere, and leap up into the: blue ether.
with which the universe is filled, stand
ing proudly up far beyond the reach Of
terresttiAB!things still pile ON your
thousands and millions Of thin leaves,
for. we are Only beginning to rear the
| mighty mass. Add millions on 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 plowed edges Of this book be-.
fore us. See how closely lie those thin:
flakes of paper, how many there are in
the mere width of a span, and then turn
our eyes ia Imagination upward to our
mighty column Of accumulated sheets.
1t now contains its appointed number,
and our one billion sheet Of the Times,
supefimposed upon each other, and
pressed into compact mass, has reach.
ed an altitude of Al ,34S miles London
Times.
| - The blue glass curative process, re.
Gently so recommended, and almost for
gotten already in this country, has come