TWO HUNDRED MILLIONS.
Mr. Vanderbilt (save the New York Times) was worth 200.000,000d01. If we say that he was worth 500,000,000d01. or 1,000,000,000 dol., do we get a perceptibly different impression about the bulk of his fortune ? Most people do not. To the average mind the conception of enormous wealth is much the same whether it be reckoned in hundreds of millions or in vigiutillions. The human mind cannot grasp these great sums or clearly appreciate the difference between one hundred millions and two hundred millions. Let us try and describe Mr. Vanderbilt's great fortune in terms of linear, square, and cubic measurement and of weight. Everybody understands these terms, and they make a definite impression on men's minds. If this sum of 200,000,000d01. were in standard silver dollars it would present such features as these : —Put lengthwise, dollar after dollar, it would stretch a distance of 4672 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 fiat on the ground, the dollars would cover a space of nearly sixty acres. The weight of this mass of silver would be 7160 tons. To transport it would require 358 cars, carrying twenty tons each (this is the capacity of the strongest freight cars), and making a train just about two miles and a-half long. On ordinary grades it would require twelve locomotives to haul this train. On roads of steep grades and sharp curves, fifteen or twenty locomotives would be needed. In one dollar bills this 200,000,000d01. fortune would assume such shapes as this :The bills stretched lengthwise would extend 23,674 miles, or nearly the circumference of the earth at the equator. Piled up one on another, close as leaveaina new book, they would reach a height of twelve miles. Spread out on the ground, they would cover 746 acres, or nearly the whole surfaco of Central Park, including ponds and reservoirs. A safe deposit vault to contain these bills would require to be 23 f net long, 22 feet wide, and 20 feet high,
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New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7567, 20 February 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)
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352TWO HUNDRED MILLIONS. New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7567, 20 February 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)
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