Bisbee daily review., 1909-07-09

CLEVELAND. Ohio. July S.-John D. Rockefeller, the founder of the Standard Oil O., and believed to be the richest man in the world, reached the biblical three score and ten" years today and celebrated the event quietly and with accustomed frugali- ty by playing golf on the recently completed new golf links on his mag. nificent estate, Forest Hill At sixty Mir. Rockefeller was an old man of rather feeble health; but careful diet and exercise did wonders for him and now, at seventy, he is almost as fresh his physician, Dr. Paul Allen, ha. expressed the opinion that MT. Rock. efeller has every prospect of reach ing the age of a hundred years. Fortunes, properly and judiciously invested, have the peculiar habit oi increasing at a rate which increases in proportion with the increase ol the fortune. MT. Rockefeller's for. tune is not an exception. The lars, est portion of it is invested in Stand ard Oil stock, which is worth now in | the neighborhood of s700 a share while the rest is invested in railroad steel and bank stocks of the most profitable description. His holdings of Standard Oil stock alone are es. timated at s175.000, 900, about 25 per cent of the total amount of stock of the company. How profitable these holdings alone are may be inferred from the fact that the total net earn. ings of the company in 1908 reached total of about SS0,000, 900, nearly one-half of which was paid out in dividends to the stockholders, while the rest was added to the surplus, which is now estimated at about $275 5.000, ,00J.
 Accepting s7o0, 1000. 900 as a conserv- ative estimate of MT. Rockefeller's present fortune, investigators with a mathematical turn Of mind have made some interesting calculations concerning the probalie wealth of NIT. Rockefeller on his one hundredth birthday, should ne really live until July 8, 1899. They have computed that in case the present ratio of in crease should be maintained-and there seems 'n he no reason why 1t should not-Mr Rockefeller's fortune on his one hun6r, eth birthday win have reached the respectable sum of $25, ,732 ,Ge0, 900, or in round figures about twenty-six thousand millions, almost three times as much gold and silver as there is in circulation, in banks and in all the treasure houses and hints on earth today.
 l It is impossible for the human mind to grasp the vastness of such a sum of money If the whole sum were in q bills and someone should want to count them. he would find it a hopeless task. Were he to count steadily at the rate of three dollars second. day and night. without stop ping for single moment until the task were ended, 1t would take two hundred and ninety-fve years. five months, two weeks. sixteen hours thirty-five minutes and thirfy-three seconds to complete the work.
 In 1904. when MT. Rockefeller did not have much more than $500, ,00O. 900 to his name. his income vas q little more than $2 every second oi the day. for seven days . week. Should Mir. Rockefeller reach the cen tury mark. his income then would amount to nearly $950o . second, which is more than a great many men succeed in accommodating in a lifetime. Even should Mir. Rockefel. Ter continue to give away a few mn. Hons every now and then, it Is safe to assume that he would not have to spend his tooth birthday at the poor houseS