Year: 1878

Mr.. Henry Bessemer writes as follow
to the London Times: cit would be
curious to know how many of your read
ers have brought fully home to theil
inner consciousness the real Significance
of that little word billion which ",
have seen OF late 80 glibly used in you
columns.


"Let us briefly take glance at it as
measure of time, distance and weight
AS measure Of time, I would take ont
second as the unit, and carry myself il
thought through the lapse Of ages bacl
to the first day of the year one of ou'
era, remembering that in all those year.
we have 365 days, and in every day just
sc, 400 seconds of time. Hence, in re.
turning in thought back again to thil
year of grace 1873, one might have sup
posed that billion Of seconds had lone
since elapsed; but this is not 80. W.
have not even passed one-sixteenth o.
that number in all these long eventful
years, for it takes just 81, ,6S7 years
tAeYenteen days, twenty-five hours, forty
1--WE minutes, and five seconds to consti
fnte billion Of seconds Of time. .1---,-'


"It is no easy matter to bring unde
the cognizance of the human eye q bill
lion objects OF any kind. Let us try II
imagination to arrange this number TO-
inspection, and for this purpose I would
select sovereign as familiar object,
Let us put one on the ground and pill
upon it as many as will reach twenty
feet in height then let US place mum
bers of similar columns in close contact
forming a straight line, and making
sort of wall twenty feet high, showing
only the thin edges of the coin. Imagine
two such walls running parallel to eacl
other and forming, as it were, o long
street. We must then keep on extend
ing these walls for miles-nay, hundreds
of miles, and still we shall be far shor1
of the required number. And it is moi
, until we have extended our imaginary
street to distance OF 2,3864 miles that
We shall have presented for inspection
our one billion of coins.


"Or in lieu OF this arrangement We
may place them fiat 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 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
than 1853 times around the globe. If we
can further imagine all these rows of
links lsid closely side by side and every
one in contact with its neighbor, We shall
have formed a golden band around the
globe just fifty-two feet six inches wide;
and this will represent our one billion OF
coins. Such a chain, if laid in straight
line, would reach fraction over 18, 1928, =
AS miles, the weight Of which, if esti-
mated at one quarter ounce each sover-
sign, would be 6, 975, AT tons, and would
require for their transport no less than
1925 ships, each with full cargo OF
1900 tons. Even then there would be q
residue of AT tons representing "a, ,O8l,-
920 sovereigns.


"For measure Of height let US take
a much smaller unit as our measuring
rod. The thin sheets of paper on which
these lines are printed, if laid out fiat
and firmly pressed together as in we'll
bound book, would represent measure
of about 1-333d of an inch in thickness.
Let us see, now. how high a dense pile
formed by billion of these thin paper
leaves would reach. We must, in i'm
agination, 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 the Andes, and the highest
peaks of the Himalayas, and shooting
up from thence through the aeecy
clouds, pass beyond the confines of our
attenuated atmosphere, and leap up into
the blue ether with which the universe
is filed, standing 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 it's due amount. Let us pause
to look at the neat ploughed edges OF
the book before us. See how closely lie
those thin flakes OF paper; how many
there are in the width of q span I! and
then turn our eyes in Imagination up
ward to our mighty column OF accumu-
lated sheets. It now contains its ap-
pointed number, and our one billion OF
Sheets of the Times superimposed upon
each other, and pressed into a compact
mass, has reached an altitude OF 47,34S
miles"