, 1890-01-09
A VAST CEMETERY.
Calculations ON the Extent of the Earth
Which Run Into Big Figures.

Calculations on the Extent of the Earth
Which Run Into Big Figures.
Here is a man who has taken tho
trouble to calculate how much land il
would take to bury the population OF
the world for 5000 years or 100, 900
years. He finds hat the former could
be buried i'll half of Texas and the lat
ter in the territory east of the Missis-
sippi river.
In 5000 years you have sixty cen.
turtles. In each century You may
count three generations of mankind,
or $50 generations in all, each being a
generation of 1. $50, GOO, 600. Now lay
out a cemetery for one generation. It
will be a huge estimate to give to
every man, woman and child a grave
five feet by two, or ten square feet. A
square mile contains something less
than %, 200. 900 square feet. You
want, then, a graveyard not 55 miles
long by 10 wide for your whole gen
Grafton. Now multiply this by $50 and
you nave your burying ground for
5000 years of mankind. That is, a
strip of land 1900 miles long by 55
miles wide will be ample. In other
words, a cemetery containing 100, 900
square miles would be sufficient for
the entire human race to lie side by
side. The estimate which l have given
you of the continuous population is
obviously enormously large. The es-
innate of the size of each grave is very
large. A strictly correct estimate
would reduce h size of the required
cemetery more than one-half. But
enormous as it is, you could lay out
your burial ground for all men who
hQUQ III vad nn aorfh CO shat fla-r~al
lie side by side, in Arizona or in Cali
fornia, or you could lay it out in Tex
as large enough to accommodate the
race of 5000 years past, and also the
race for 5000 years yet to come, all
sleeping in the soil of that one state of
this union.
But some Il says the ace of man
has been on earth 100, 600 years. That
is pure imagination and there is not,
SO far as l know, a fact on which to
rest 1t. But suppose it is true, and the
population always what it now is.
You have provided for {, 1000 years of
It. You want nearly seventeen times
as large a cemetery for the generations
of a thousand centuries. That is, you
want ], ZOO, 900 squares miles in it. Lay
It out whenever you please, 1, 700 miles
long by l 700 miles wide. 1t is but a
part of the United States. And SO
enormously large have been the rough
estimates thus far used, it is safe TO say
that if the human race has been in ex-
lstence 100, 900 years, a separate grave
could be provided for every indiyid-
ual of the race within a part of the
United States east of the Mississippi
river"
Estimating that a large man can
stand on two square feet, and the ay-
erage standing room of a crowd of
men, women and children is one and
a half square feet, he calculates that
IL, 600, 900 people can stand on a quare
mile. According to this the popuia-
ton of the world could stand on "a
square miles.
Then he makes this curious sugges-
ton:
Garry your arithmetic still further.
You laid out a cemetery for the L, $780,
000,0 600 of mankind now living.
Build a city for them to dwell in. Az
erage families at five persons to a fam
lily, and give each fnmily q house and
lot 20 feet by 100. Your cemetery gave
FIVE persons fifty square feet for graves.
Their city lot is forty times as large.
Your city lot must therefore be forty
times as large as your cemetery. Add
20 per cent. for good streets"
On this basis the population of the
world could live in a city 100 miles
wide and 220 miles long, and have
twice the space per capita now being
occupied by the majority of people in
u great cities.--Dr Prince in Jour
nal of Commerce.