The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1897-11-04

us, but the simple
human mind fails
to grasp the extent of the mighty
grandeur shown in the authentic
statements of the astronomer. The
fact is, the figures are beyond compre-
hension Of the ordinary intellect when
set down in rows that bewilder. We
are told that the first three figures are
units, tens AMI hundreds, the next
three thousands, the next millions and
the next billions. The figures look in
nocent enough and we can smile at
hundreds of dollars and think with
pleasurable feelings of thousands,
which melt into millions, but the brow
clouds with care when we endeavor
to get a comprehensive idea of that
wonderfully overwhelming quantity
set down as a billion. Now, what is
instantaneous action? The mind is
Incapable of comprehending the al
most infinitesimal divisions Of time
that are recorded upon some of the
wonderful machines used by scientific
searchers after the truth. Light trav-
els at the rate of two hundred thousand
oSSoLh IL 49, thC CIolS, ~
Simultaneous. The astronomers tell us
that when a flash of lightning occurs
upon our earth it is not visible IN the
neon until a second and a quarter af-
forwards, nor on the suns surface I'M
til eight minutes, or on Uranus for
two hours, and upon Neptune until
four n a quarter hour after its
passage through the ether. Nov
away, far, far away, beyond Neptune,
there are such stars as Vega, of the
first magnitude, AND on them the i'm
aginary light OF the flash would not
fall, although travelling at the amazing
rate of twelve million miles a minute,
till ~forty-f1ve years had passed, but
further, much further on in the never
ending space above us, there are still
more distant worlds, sparkling like
diamonds on blue velvet, and those Of
the eighth magnitude would require
n hundred and eighty years, and
those of the twelfth magnitude four
thousand years, for the same flash to
reach them, rushing through space
nearly two hundred thousand miles
each time that a watch makes a single
tick.
A shadowy sense of eternity and in
finite distance can be formed from a
contemplation of the distances of the
stars from the earth. The moon is two
hundred and forty thousand miles dis
tant, but the sun is ninety-three mil
lion two hundred and fifty thousand
miles from u planet. The immen-
sity of the sun seems almost too much
for the human mind to comprehend,
for it is more than a million and a
quarter times larger than this great
earth on which we live. Sir John Her.
schel remarks that if the whole of the
earth were laid upon the surface of the
sun it would not cover more thar one
thirteenth-thousandth part of its sur
, face, and so great is its heat that from
: every square yard of it's surface there
is eXhaled a temperature equal to that
; which the burning of sixteen tons of
coal every hour would produca-suff-
cient to keep a steam engine of sixty
l three thousand horsepower at work.
Still, the sun is but a star of the fourth
magnitude. Everybody is familiar
II II uoS "a oiiluS, LII H6d 1 IS
fixed star to earth, a sun of suns. This
7 star is upwards of thirteen millions of
Z miles from this earth. So much great
err is it than our mighty sun that if
+ broken to pieces it would provide ma
terial for about two hundred and fifty
Suns as large az u own, although our
sun, if broken into pieces, would pro-
vide material for one million, four
y hundred thousand globes of the size of
@ talk of billions of miles and years and
= other things, but few people can form
a conception of the quantity comprised
in a billion. The mind is incapable OF
cCnceiving such an enormous number
In order to comprehend this fact, il
may be stated that, in order that a
person may count a billion, he would
e require nineteen thousand, three hun
e bred and twenty-five years and three
hundred and nineteen days. The arith.
metical symbol of a billion is simple
t and without great pretention. Let us
l. consider a billion as a measure of time
$ and distarcc.
1t is no easy matter to bring under
the cognizance of the human eye 6
+ billion of any kind of objects. Take
a ten-dollar gold piece as a once famil
lar object. Put one in the ground ant
: stand Upon it as many of it's kind a!
= will reach twenty feet in height, theI
place the numbers of similar column!
in close contact, forming a straigh'
line and making a sort of wall twenty
feet high, showing only the thin edge
of the coin as they lie fiat upon eacl
other. Imagine two such walls, run
ming parallel to each other and form
~ ing, as it were, a long street. Keel
on extending these walls for miles
hundreds of mileS-and still the Gccu
mutation will be far short of the mum
Der we want to reach. In fact, it il
not until this imaginary street is ex
tended to a distance of two Thousand
three hundred and eighty-siX and
half miles that we shall have p~resente'
for inspection the one billion coins
To get an idea of height in referenc
to a billion take a much smaller uni
as a measuring rod-the sheets of pa
per on which this newspaper is print
ed. Pile them vertically upwards, b,
. degrees, reaching to the height of on