Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-01-04
l AN ENGLISH BILLION.
FEW APPRECIATE THE REAL sIeNlFh-
 CANcE OF THE WORD.

T0dI SlSul1CduC9 OA LA1db AIIVGc WO1o u4A~ lion" which we have so often seen used in your columns. There are indeed few intellects that can fairly grasp it and di- gest it as 8 whole. and there are doubt less many thousands who cannot appre- ciate its true worth, even when reduced to fragments for more easy assimilation. It's arithmetical symbol is simple and without much pretention, There are no large 6gures-just a modest 1 fol- lowed by dozen ciphers, and that is all.
 Let us briefly take glance at it as 8 measure of time, distance and weight. As measure of time l 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, remem bering that in all those years we have 365 days and in every day just &C., 400 seconds of time Hence, in return ing in thought back again to this year of grace, one might have supposed that l. COG, ,000, ,000 ,00O 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 r days % hours 45 minutes and 5 seconds to constitute I,UUU.UUU,OOU,OUO SeCOuIS Ol ILL0S.
 1t is no easy matter to bring under the cognizance of the human eye a billion objects of any kind. Let us try in imag- ination to arrange this number for in- spection. and for this purpose would se- feet a sovereign as a familiar object. Let us put one on the ground and pile upon it as many as will reach 20 feet in height. Then let us place numbers of similar columns in close contact, form ing straight line and making a sort of wall 20 feet high. showing only the thin edges of the coin.
 Imagine two such walls running par allel to each other and forming, as it were. 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 until we have extended our imaginary street to distance of 2,386a miles that we shall have presented for
 Or in lieu of this arrangement we may place them flat upon the ground, forming one continuous line like long golden chain with every link in close contact. But to do this we must pass over land and sea, mountain and valley, desert and plain, crossing the equator and returning around the southern hemi- sphere, through the trackless ocean, re- trace our way again across the equator, then still on and on until we again ar rive 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 drag this imaginary chain no less 763 times around the globe.
 If we can further imagine all those rows of links laid closely side by side and every one in contact with its neigh bor, we shall have formed a golden band around the globe just 52 feet inches wide and this will represent our 1,000,- 900, ,000, 900 of coins. Such chain, if laid in straight line. would reach g fraction over 19,32S,445 miles, the weight of which, if estimated at one-fourth ounce each sovereign. would be 6,975, ,447 tons and would require for their transport no less than e,3s5 ships. cath with full cargo of 5000 tons. Even then there would be a residue of 447 tons. repre- senting GA. .0S1 ,920 sovereigns.
 For a measure of height let us take much smaller unit as our measuring rod The sheets of paper on which The Times is printed, if laid out fiat and firmly pressed together as in a well bound book would represent measure of about one-three hundred and thirty third of an inch in thickness. Let us see how high dense pile formed by billion of these thin paper leaves would reach. We must in imagination pile them vertically upward, by degrees reaching to the height of our tallest spires. and passing these the pile must still grow higher, topping the Alps and Andes and the highest peaks of the Him. alayas, and shooting up from thence through the feecy clouds pass beyond the confines of our attenuated atmos- phere and leap up into the blue ether with which the universe is filled, stand ing proudly up far beyond the reach of all terrestrial things-still pile on your thousands and millions of thin leaves, for we are only beginning to rear the mighty mass Add millions on millions of sheets and thousands of miles on these, and still the number will lack its due amount,
 Let us pause to look at the neat plowed edges of the book before us. See how closely lie those thin flakes of paper; how many there are in the mere width of a span. and then turn our eyes in imagina- ton upward to our mighty column of accumulated sheets. It now contains its appointed number, and our i ,000, GOO GOO, 900 of sheets of The Times superimposed upon each other and pressed into com pact mass has reached an altitude of 47,- 84S miles!
 Those who have taken the trouble to follow me thus far will, think, agree with me that ,0O0, ,0OO. .00O, ,0o0 is a fearful thing, and that few can appreciate its real value As for quadrillions and tril- lions, they are simply words, mere words, wholly incapable of adequately impress ing themselves on the human intellect.- Sir Henry Besselner in London Times.