Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-03-26
A Billion Dissected.

It would be curious to know how
mary readers have brought fully
hone to their inner consciousness
the real significance of that little
word, billion" which we have seen
so glibly used. There are, doubt
less, many thousands who cannot
appreciate its true worth even when
reduced to frac cments for more easy
assimilation. Its arithmetrical sym
bolts simple and without much pre-
tension; there are no large figures
Just q modest l followed by a
dozen ciphers, and that is all.
Let us briefly take glance at it
as d measure of time, distance and
weight. AS q measure of time, /
would take one second as, a unit, and
carry myself in thought through the
lapse of ages back to the first day
of tbe year of our ora, remember
ing. that in all those years we have
365 days, and in every year just sc
thousand seconds of time. Hence,
in returning in thought back to this
year Of grace, 1880, one might have
supposed that billion of seconds
had long since elapsed; but this is
not SO. We. have mot even passed
ons-sixteenth of that number in all
these lohg eventful years. for it takes
just 81, ,687 years, II days, % hours,
As minutes and 6 seconds of time.
is no easy matter to bsing under
the cognizance of the human eye q
billion objects of any kind. Let us
trf in Imagination to arrange this
number for. inspection. and for the
purpose I would select a sovereign
as a familiar object. Let US put one
on the ground and pile upon it as
meny as will reach twenty feet in
h6ght, then let US place numbers
.Qkeimilar columns in CLOSE contact,
forming o straight line, and making
sort of wall twenty feet high, show
ing only the thin edges of the coin.
Imagine two such walls running par
allel to each other and forming, as
it were, q 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 un-
til we have extended our imaginary
street to a distance of 3,3S6ll miles
that we shall nave presented for in
spection 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
line in close contact. But to do
this we must pass over land and
see, mountain and valley, desert
and plain, crossing the equator and
returning around the Southern Hem
isphere, through the trackless ocean,
retrace 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 a
golden chain around the huge bulk
of the earth, we shall be but at the
beginning of our task. We must
draw this imaginary chain no less
than 763 times around the globe.
If we can furtherimagine these rows
of links laid closely by side and eve
ry one in contact with its neighbor
we shall have formed n golden band
around the globe just 50 feet six in
ches wide. and this will represent
our one billion of coins. Such a
chain if laid in straight line would
reach fraction over 1S,32S, ,455
miles, the weight of which, if esti-
mated at one-quarter of an ounce
each sovereign, would be 6,975 AT
tons, and would require for their
transport not less than 1885 ships,
each with full cargo of 5000 tons.
Even then there would be residue
of 447 tons, representing 4,O11, ,92O
sovereigns.
For q measure of height let us
take smaller unit as our measur
ing rod. The thin sheets of paper on
which these lines are printed, if laid
ont fiat and firmly pressed together
as in a we'll bound book, would re-
present measure of about 1880
of an inch in thickness. Let us set
how high dense pile formed by {
billion CT these thin paper leaves
would reach. We must in imagina
ton, pile them vertically upward
by degrees reaching to the height O.
our tallest spires, and passing these
the pile must still grow higher, top
ping the Alps and Andes aud the
highest peaks OF the Himalayas
and shooting up from thence inte
the feecy clouds, pass beyond the
confines of our attenuated atmo
sphere. and leap up into the blu'