TWO HUNDRED MILLION.
Mr Vanderbilt was worth 200,000,000d01. If we say that he was worth 500,000,000d01. br 1,000,000,000tf01. do we get a perceptibly different impression about the bulb of his fortune? Most people do not. To the average mind the conception of enormous wealth is much the sanif whether it be reckoned in hundreds of millions or ia sigintillions. The human mind cannoi gJttsp these great sums or clearly appreciate tha difference between one hundred millions and two hundred millions.
p Let try ana describe Mr Vanderbilt's great fortune in terms of linear, square, and cubic measurement and of weight. Everybody under-jtanris these terms, and they make a ikrijii' - " impression on men's minus. If this snm cf 200,000,000d01. were in standard sriver dollars it would present such features as this:
Put lengthwise, dollar after dollar, it would stretch a distance of 4.672 miles, making a silver streak from New York across the ocean to Liverpool. Piled up, dollar on dollar, it would reach a height of 355 miles
Laid liat on the ground, the dollars would cover a spac»- of nearly sixty acres. The weight of th:s mass of silver would be 7,160 tons.
To transport it Jwould require 328 cars ca Tying twenty tons each (this is the capacity for the strongest freight cars), and making a train just about two miles and g half long. On ordinary grades it would require twelve locomotives to haul this train ; on roads of steep gradt-a and sharp curves, fifteen or twenty locomotives would be needed.
In one doiiar bills thi» 200,000,000d01. fortune would assume such shapes as this:— The bii!s stretched lengthwise would extend 23.674 miles, or nearly the circumference of the earth at the e_quator. Piled up one on another, close jis loaves in a iu-.v lhx»k, they would reach a height of twelve miles.
Spread out on thr ground they would cover 746 acres, or nearly the surface of Central Park, including ponds and reservoirs. A safe deposit vault to contain these bills would require to lie "23ft. long, 22ft. wide and 20ft. high.—Xeic York Times.
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Bibliographic details
Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1523, 19 March 1886, Page 6
Word Count
347TWO HUNDRED MILLION. Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1523, 19 March 1886, Page 6
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