A discussion has been going on in the papers as
to what a billion means, and Mr. Henry Bessemer writes a letter to the Times, suggesting ways in which people may realise how immense the number is. He tells them that a billion of sovereigns laid flat, rim to rim, like links in a chain, would pass 763 times round the earth, and that a billion sheets of the Times pressed on each other would form a solid column of paper 47,318 miles high. Does he really believe that an illustra- tion of that kind is more comprehensible than the word billion. The truth is, that neither can be realised in the least by persons unaccustomed to such high figures, and either would be realised easily enough by persona accustomed to require them. Frenchmen who use small moneys, and therefore need high figures, realise "a milliard "—a thousand millions—easily enough ; while to an average Englishman, such a figure presents no defi- nite idea at all. It is a pity we have not a single word hie the Indian crore (ten millions) to serve as a unit for high calculations, and if the masses had occasion to make them, they would invent one. Astronomers even now use the earth's diameter as a unit, and measure vast distances as so many " dia.ms."
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