Morning journal and courier., 1893-07-12
The Size or the Sea.


 One gallon of water weighs ten pounds. so the number of gallons in the Pacific Is over two hundred trillions; su amount which would take more than a million years to pass over the Falls of Niagara. Yet, put into a sphere. the whole of the and twenty-six miles across.
 The Atlantic could be contained bodily in the Pacific nearly three times. The number of cubio feet is one hundred snd seventeen followed by seventeen ciphers; a number that would be ticked of by our million clocks in 370. 900 years. Its weight It's 325, 900 billion tons, and the number of gallons in 1t seventy-three trillions. A sphere to hold the Atlantic would have to bs 533i miles in diameter. If it were made to fill circular pipe reaching from the earth to the sun-a distance of ninety three million miles-ths diameter of the pipe would be ], ,S37 yards, or rather over mil @; while pipe of similsr length to contain the Pacific would be over & mile and three quarters acroes. Yet the dis tance to the sun Is so great that, as has been pointed out, if a child were born with an arm long enough to reach to the sun, il would not live long enough to know that 1t had touched 1t, for sensation passes along our nerves at the rate of one hun, dred feet second, and to travel from the | sun to the earth at that rate would take ( | century and half. and such an abnormal | infant is an unlikely centensrian.
 | The rest of the sea includes the Indian | ocean, the Arctic and Antsrtic sess, and f vssious smaller masses of water; 1t coveri an area of forty-two million square miles and would form circle. of seventy thre, hundred miles In diameter. The average depth may be put at two thousand faith oms (twelve thousand feeD and the con | tents at ninety-fve million cubic miles. weighs three hundred and ninety thousand billion tons, and contains eighty-seven anC one half trillion gallons; while 1t woult form & column reaching to the sun of tu' thousand yards in diameter.
 If we now combine into one vast who'll these various figures, we arrive at som stupendous results in answer to the ques ton, "How big is the seai''
 Its area of 40, 100000 square mile could be confined by 6 circle Is, $50 mile across. The relative size of the areas O the whole surface of the earth, of Ah whole sea, inc Pacific and the Atlantic, ST represented by circles the diameters O which arc in the proportions to one anoth CT of one hundred and ffty-eight, on hundred and thirty-three, ninety-thre and sixty-two respectively; or by A crowI for the surface of the earth, half crowI for the surface of the whole sea, shillinI | for the surface of the Pacific, a threepcn ny piece for the surface of the Atlantic.
 Supposing the sea to be formed into round column reaching to the sun, the al smeter of the column would be nearly tw and one-haf miles. The Pacific wouli form fifty-three million miles of its tots length of ninety-three million, and the Al lantic eighteen million
 If 1t were a column of foe, and the er tire,heat of the sun could be concentrate upon 1t, 1t would all be melted in on second, and converted into steam in eigt seconds; which Illustrates the heat of th sun rather than the size of the sea.