The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1878-01-31
A BILLION.
Tho Real sisniacsnce Of t,,nt rat,ls Word

| The Real Bfgniacance OF thnt Little Word
1t wonid be- curious 70 know bow s,sny
of your readers have brought fully home
10 sheir inner consciousness the real sig.
nificance Of that little word "biIlion,'i
which We have seen Of late so glibIy used
In your columns. There are, indeed
few intellects that can fairly grasp ii
and digest it "a whole and there are,
| doubtless, many thousands who cannot
appreciate its true work, even when re-
duced to fragments for more easy assimi
!atioD. It's arithmetical symbol is sim.
pie and without much pretenson ther.
are no large 6gures-just modest /
followed by'a dozen ciphers, and th.t
is all.
Let us briefly take glance at it rs (,
measure 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 frat day of the year Of our era,
remembering that in all those years we
have 1865 days, and in every day just
S6,400 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
oibCC CtupbSQt OuI tilb III iOL bO. we
have not even passed one.sixteenth of
that number in all these eventful years,
| for it takes just 81 ,687 years, II days,
% hours, 45 minutes, and s seconds to
| constitute a billion of seconds Of time.
1t is no easy matter to brig under the
! cognizance of the human eye billion
| objects of any kind. Let us try in i'm
agination 10 arrange this number for in
apoptton onA fnr ft,;a t,urpo.a ,vouIt
select sovereign as familir object.
Let us put one on the ground and pile
upon il as many as will reach twenty
feet in height; tben let us place NUM-.
bere OF similar columns in close contact,
forming straight line, and making a
sort of wall twenty feet high, showing
only the thin edges of the coin. Imagine
two such walls runii;ng parallel TO each
other and forming, as it were, 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 distance of 2,3861 miles that
We shall have presented for inspection
our one billion Of coina.
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 irackless 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
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 763 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
with it's neighbor, we shall have formed
% golden baud around the globe Just so
feet inches wide; and this will repre-.
sent our one billion of coirs. Such q
chain, If laid In straight line, would
reach q fraction over 1925, ,445 miles,
the weight Of which, !: estimated at one.
| quarter ounce each sovereign, would be
6,975,447 tons, and would require for
their transport no less than 1926 ships,
each with n full cargo of $1,000 tons.
Even then there would be n residue of
447 tons, representing G4,08i 1920 sover-
eigns.
For measure of height lot us, take o
much smaller uais as our measuring rod.
| The thin sheets of paper on which these
lines are printed, if laid oct tlat and
firmly pressed together, as in we'll
bound book, would represent n measure
Of atoa. 1880 of an inch in thickness.
Let us see how high dense pile formed
by hil!'on of these thin paper leaves
would reach. We must, in Imagination,
pie them vertically up'iard,. 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 feccy clouds, pass beyond
the confines of our attenuated atmoa-
phere, and leap 10 into the blue ether
with which the universe is filled, stand
Ing proudly up far beyond the reach oi
terreatsiAI !things (; still pile on your
thousands and millions of thin leaves
for we are ohly beginning to rear the
mighty mass. Add millions on millions
Of sheets, ard thousands Of miles on
these, and still the number will lack it,
due amount. Let us pause to look al
the neat plowed edges Of this book be-
fore us. Sec how closely lie those thsr
| fakes Of paper, how many there arc ir
the mere width of n span, and then turr
our eyes 10 Imagination upward to oul
mighty column OF accumulated sheets
1t now contains its appointed number
and our one billion sheet of the times
Hupefimposed upon each other, ant
? pressed into compact mass, has reach
ed an altitude of AZ .349 miles l-Lnndn.
i Times.