Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1880-03-24
A Billion Dissected.

1t would he curious to know how many
readers have brought fully home to their
inner consciousness, the real significance of
that little word "billion " which we have
seen so glibly used. There are, doubtless,
many thousands who cannot appreciate its
true worth even when reduced to fragments
for more easy assimilation. Its arthmet-
ical symbol is simple and without much
pretension; there are no large fgures-just
a modest followed by dozen ciphers, and
that is all.
Let us briefly take glance at it as
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 first
day of the year ! of our era, rememb bering
that in all those years we have 365 days,
and in every day just 5000 seconds of time.
Hence, in returning in thought back again
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
not even passed one-sixteenth of that num-
Der in all these long eventful years. for it
takes just 3l,6S7 years, II days, % hours,
45 minutes and seconds of time
1t is no easy matter to bring under the
cognizance of the human eve billion OBJ
jects of any kind. Let us try in Imagination
to arrange this number for inspection, and
for the purpose | would select a sovereign 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 a straight line, and making a sort
of wall twenty feet high, showing only 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 extending these walls for miles
may, hundreds of miles, and still we shall
be far short of the required number. And
it is not until we have extended our imagi-
nary street to a distance of 2,3S64 miles
that we shall have presented for inspection
our one billion of coins.
Or in lieu of this arrangement we may
place them upon the ground, forming one
continuous line like golden chain, with
every link in close contact. But to do this
we must pass over land aud sea. mountain
aud 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 our
18Th .,, hall l. r
ear'a, a., we 'Hai W oe put a. !he beginning Oh
us .p 'ess Hso we .nus' atag Inis chain no less
s"au 'o' e'nes Ioupu ."e slooe' II we can
lun' .u''ne' in"glue .hese rows Oh INKS iaid
oluseiy sue py sue anu every one III contact
Will VIII i's ne,gnpor, we siali nave formed a
go'uen oa,u round 'he g,ooe Just - ieet
,i,,. "tue' alu Viiis VIII reP.eseh. our one
strn;nht o,ioI VI n COINS Iacn cna'.i II iaiu 10
sS'S.sns ,o aaS me woaiu reach iraeti9n over
h'ies, .ne ~eisnt Vi which, II es-
lilna'cu one-lua.Ser o- ., at ounce each soVer'
eign, Wouiu oe 'o'ii' .ons' ana would re-
5H,,e aa loi .hrir transportation no less tnan nan
s,oo' SHIPS each WIN iuil cargo oil o,ooo
.ons' E,ru 'neh t"ere "ouiu oe resi-
uue oi fi' oohs' representing oi'ool,szo
soTere'gns.
for measure OF height let us take a
lnuch smaller unit az our measuring rod
ne tnin sheets OF paper on whicn these
lihes are Prin,eu' IL iaiu OUT nat ana nrmiy
presseu 1oselher' as III "eii-oound oook
wouiu represent measure OF ABOUT l-oa3h
OF an incn IN thickness' Let US see now
nigh a oehse PIE formed py oiiiion oi
these 'nih paper leaves would reach. we
must ,h imagination, PIE them vertically
upward, Dy degrees reaching TO the height
Oh our tailest spires and passing these the
pie must stll grow nlBner, topping the