Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1889-12-17
THE NUMBER OF THE DEAD.

IT Is commonly supposed that
? intermingling with the soil Of a
very large portion OF the earth's sur
face. are the ashes Of human re-
mains. Upon this assumption Is
based n favorite argument against
the resurrection, to the effect that
the substance that once composed
human bodies has become so thor
oughly, and in such large pro
portion. commingled with the soil,
that. to raise those bodies would be
to raise a great part Of the surface
LAYERS OF the earth itself, in locali-
ties that have long been thickly
/ populatei. But the notion that the
/ earth is one vast human cemetery
| is utterly erroneous, as is shown in
! n paper written by w. c. Prime, L.
LID. and published in the New
York Journal Of Commerce, from
which we take the following:
"The population Of the earth is now
about I.50OO01,OOl. Suppose the
human race 10 have existed for 5000
years, and TO have been always as
great as now. In 5000 years you have
co centuries. In each century you
may count three generations OF man
kind, or one hundred and eighty gem
eratons in all, each being a generation
Of !, 500, 200, co. Now lay oCt a ceme-
terry for one generation It viii be a
huge estimate to give TO every man,
woman, and child = grave five feet by /
two, or ten square feet. You want for
your grave yard, then, 1900, 600 900
square feet Of ground. a square mile
contains something less than =, 0JO,uOO
square feet. You want, then, a grave
yard not - miles long by 10 wide for
your whole generation. Now multiply
this by lSl, and you have your burial
ground for 5000 years OF mankind.
That IS, a strip Of land 1850 miles
long by % miles wide will be ample.
In other words, a cemetery containing
10000 square miles would be SUI
fcient for the entire human race to lie /
side by side. The estimate which I
have given you Of continuous popula-
ton is obviously enormously large.
The estimate OF THE size OF each grave
is very large. \ strictly correct esd-
mate would reduce the size OF the re-
quired cemetery more than one-half.
But enormous IS It is, you could lay
out your battle-ground for all mon
who have lived on earth. 50 that they
could lie side by side, in Arizona or in
or you could lay it out in
Texas large enough 10 accommodate
the race Of G,OoO years past, and also
The race for 5000 years vet to come.
al sleeping in the soil Of that one
state Of this Union. But some
Dne says the race OF man has been on
Earth 100000 years. That is n pure
and there is not, so far a
know, fact on which to rest II.
But suppose it is true, and suppose the
population always what it now Is.
You have provided for 6OO3 years Of it. |
You want nearly Il times as large a
for the generations of a
thousand centuries. That is, You want
100 900 square miles in It. Lay it out
you please. 100 miles long
" 1000 wide. It Is but a part Of the :
-nited States. And so enormously
1rEe have been the rough estimates
hus far used, it Is safe to say that II T;
he human race has been In existence
10000 years, a separate grave could be .
royided for every individual OF the |
ace within part Of the United ; ates S
asst OF the Mississippi River {
The foregoing was written with !
ut any apparent intention Of advo-
ating any doctrine Of Scripture OF
but merely to correct, in a
cientific and irrefutable manner,
ertain popular but erroneous ideas.
The same writer continues in a
Dmewhat curious strain. showing
hat the amount ofspace actually in
TO the comfortable ex-
.tencgof dense population oflivinc
uman beings, is not nearly so great
: Is generally supposed. provided
he city containing them be properly
I'D out and its buildings suitably
INSTRUCTED. His conclusions evil
emily have no intended application
, the city whose dimensions are
escribed in the Apocalypse, but i,
ley serve to Illustrate what an I
population that city would
=