A BILLION DISSECTED.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 118, 18 May 1878, Page 4

A BILLION DISSECTED.

Mr Henry Bessemer writes (o the "Timts" as follows :— lt would be curious to kuow how muny of your readers have brought home to theii inner consciousness the real significance of that little word " billion '' which we have seen of late 80 glibly used in your columns. There are, indeed, few intellects that can fairly grasp it, and digest it bb a whole ; and there are doubtless many thousands who cannot appreciate its true worth even when reduced to fragments for more easy ae. eimilotion. Its arithmetical symbol is easy and without much pretension ; there are no large figures — just a modest 1, followed by a dozen cyphers, and that is ell. Let us briefly take a

glance at it as a measure of time, distance and weight. As a measure of time I would take one second a 8 the unit, '"and carry myself in thought through the lapae of ages back to the first day of the year 1 of our era, renaembejing that in all those years we tiavtt 365 days, and in every day just 86,400 seconds of time. Hence, in returning in thought back again to this year of grace 1878, one might supposo that a billion of seconds had long since elapsed j but this is not so ; we have not even passed one-sixteenth of that number in all these loner, eventful years, for it fakes juet 31,687 years, 17 days, 22 hours 45 minutes and 5 seconds to constitute a billion of seconds of time. It is no easy matter to bring under the cognizance of the human eye a billion objects of any kind. Let us try in imagination to arrange this number for inspection, and for this purpose I would select a sovereign as a familiar object. Let U3 put one" on the ground, and pile upon it as many as will reach 20 feet in height. Tb n let us place numbers of similar columns in close contact, forming a straight Hue, aiul making a straight wall 20 feet high, showing only the thin edges of the coiD. Imagine two such walls ruoning parallel to each other, and forming, as it were, a long street. We must then keep on extending O ur wall for miles — nay, hundreds of milea, and still we sbali be far short of the required number. And it is not uotil we have extended our imaginary street to a distaDce of 2,386$ miles that we skull have fireseuted for inspection our one bilion of coma. Or in lieu of this arrangement, we may place them flat upon ihe ground, forming one continuous line like a long goldeu chain, with every link in olose contact. But to do (his we must pasu over land and sea, mouutain and valley, desert and plain, crossing the fquator and returning around the southern hemisphere, through the trackles ocean, retrace our way again across the equator, then still on and on, until we again arrive at our starting point; and when we have thus paaeed a goldon chain around ike huge bulk of the earth, we shall be but at the beginning of our task. We must dreg this imaginary chain no less than 763 times round tho globe. If we oan further imagine oil these rows of links laid closely Bide by side and every one iv contact with its neighbor, we shell have formed a golden band around the globe just 52ft. 6m. wide j and this will represent our one* billion of coins. Such a chain, if laid in a straight line, would reach v fraction over 18,328,645 miles, the weight of which, it estimated at £oz each sovereigu, would be 6,975,447 tons, and would require for their transport no lesa than 2,325 Bbips, each with, a cargo of 3,000 tons. Even then there would be a residue of 447 tons, representing 64,081,920 sovereigns. For a measure of height let us take a much smaller unit, as our measuring rod. The shin sheets of paper on which these lines are printed, it laid out flat and firmly pressed together as in a wellbound book, would represent a measure of about 1.333 rd. of inch in thickoeea. Let us see bow high a dense pile formed by a billion of ikese thin paper leaves would reach. We must, in imagination, pie them vietically upward, by degreea 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 Himalayas, and shooting up from thence through the fleecy clouds, pass beyond the confines of our attenuated atmosphere, and leap up into the blue ether with which the universe is filled, standing proudly up far beyond the reach of all terrestial; still pile on your thousands and millions of thin leaves, for we are oaly beginnicg to rear the mighty mass. Add millions on millions of abeetß, and thousand of miles on these, and still the number will laok its due amount. Let us pause to look at iue neat ploughed 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 imagination upwards to our mighty column of accumulated sheets. It now contains its appointed number^ and our own billion ot sheets of the Times superimposed upon each other and pressed into a compact moss hag reached an aitidude of 47,348 miles. Those who have taken the trouble to follow me thus far will, I thiak, agree with, me that a billion is a fearful thing, aad that few can appreciate Hb real value. Aa ior quadrillions and trillions, they are simply words, mere worda wholly incapable of adequately impressing themselves on the human intellect.