A BILLION DISSECTED.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2878, 7 May 1878, Page 3

A BILLION DISSECTED.

A correspondent of the London Times, writing on the subject, says :— " Sir,—lt would be curious to know how many of your readers have brought fully home to their inner consciousness the real significance of that little word 'billion' which we have seen of late so glibly used in our columns. There are, indeed, few intellects that can fairly grasp it and digest it as a whole; and there are, doubtless, many thousands who cannot appreciate its true worth even when reduced to fragments for its more easy assimilation. Its arithmetical symbol is simple and without much pretension; there are no large figures*—just a modest 1 followed by a dozen cyphers, and that is all. *

" 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 as the unit, and carry myself in thought through the lapse of ages back to the first day of the year 1 of sera, remembering that in all those years we have 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 have supposed that a billion of seconds had long -since elapsed ; but this is not so. We have not even passed one-sixteenth of that number in all these long eventful years, for it takes just 31,678 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 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, forming a straight line, and making a sort of wall 20 feet high, showing only the thin edges of the coin. Imagine two such walls running parallel to each other, and forming, as it were, a 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 a distance of 2,386| miles that we shall have presented for inspection our one billion coins.

•' Or in lieu of this arrangement we may place them flat upon the ground, forming one continuous line like a long golden chain, with, every link in cloße 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 hemisphere through the trackless 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 passed a golden chain around the huge bulk of the earth, we shall be but at the beginning of pur ta9k. We must drag this imaginary chain no less than 763 times round the globe. If we can further imagine all these rows of links laid closely side by side and every one in contact with its neighbor, we shall have formed a golden band around the globe just 52 feet 6in wide; and this will represent our one billion of coins. Such a chain, if laid in a straight ljne, would reach a / fraction over 18.32&445 miles, the weight of which, if estimated at £oz each sovereign, would be 6,975,447 tons, and would require for their transport no less than 2,325 ships, each with a full 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 thin sheets of paper on which these lines are printed, if laid out flat and firmly pressed together as in a well bound book, would represent a measure of about l-333d. of an inch in thickness. Let us see how high a dense pile formed by a 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 thesjv 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 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 Jts 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", bow 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 one billion of sheets of The Times superimposed upon each other, and pressed into a compact mass has reached an altitude of 47,348 miles !

" Those who bave taken the trouble to follow me thus far will, I think, agree with me that a billion is a fearful thing, nndjjAtiat few can appreciate its real value. HsTbr quadrillions and trillions, they are simply words, mere words wholly incapable of adequately impressing themselves on the human .intellect.—l remain, your obedient servant, Hensy Bessbjieb.