Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 September 1893 — Vastness of the Sea. [ARTICLE]

Vastness of the Sea.

A writer in “Longman’s” (Mr. Schooling) has been measuring and weighing the sea. According to his calculations the number of gallons in the whole sea is 373 trillions (million million million), which, if it could be poured away at the rate of 1,000 gallons a second, would take nearly 12,000 million years to get rid of. If we could sell it even at so low a price as one shilling for 10,000 gallons. the bill would come to 1,800 billion pounds. Supposing the sea to be formed into a round column reaebingto the sun, the diameter would be nearly 2-J miles. The Pacific would form 53 million miles of its total length of 93 million, aud the Atlantic 18 million. If it were a column of ice, and the entire heat of the sun could be concentrated upon it, it would all be melted in one second, and converted into steam in eight seconds; which illustrates the heat of the suij rather than the size of the sea. The weight of the sea is 1 trillion and 065 billion^,665,000,000,000,000,000) tons, and if a contractor took the job to move it at even so moderate a price as 1,000 tons for u peuny, he would require to be psid the amount of the national debt ten thousand timto over in rewatd for his labors [London Neve.