Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 February 1877 — Commodore Vanderbilt’s Wealth. [ARTICLE]

Commodore Vanderbilt’s Wealth.

Commodore Vanderbilt died worth about $100,000,000. Suppose this wealth to be in gold coin, twenty-dollar pieces, let us see what might be done with it. A twenty-dollar gola piece measures about 11-4 inches in diameter; therefore, as there are 63,860 inehes in a lineal mile, it would require 60,686 double eagles, laid one after another in a close and continuous line, to cover a mile. Hence it follows that 5,000,000 of twenty-dollar gold pieces laid one after the other, in a straight line, with their edges touching, would cover a distance of 88 miles and 1,181 yards—more than enough to reach from New York to Philadelphia. A double eagle weighs 516 troy grains; estimating 7,000 troy grains as equal to one pound avoirdupois, 5,000,000 of twentydollar pieces weigh 368,555 5-7 pounds, or over 184 tons. Now supposing that 100 pounds are as much as an ordinary man can conveniently carry a long distance. it would require 3,685 men, each carrying IQO pounds of twenty-dollar pieces, to carry the late Commodore’s $100,000,000; and there would be 55 5-7 pounds over; which might be carried by a boy. These men, if formed in a procession ten feet apart, would extend nearly seven miles, lacking only 110 yards to complete the seventh mile, and would reach from the Battery almost to Harlem Bridge. Let us convert the Commodore’s wealth into blocks of pure gold, each measuring one cubic foot, and weighing 1.203 5-8 pounds. Place one of these on the sidewalk, unwatched, and it would be safe; for no rogue, no matter how anxious to steal, could remove that little cube of gold measuring only one foot each way. In pure gold worth $100,000,000, there are 806 of these'eubes, which would not fill a room measuringsevenfeet in height, length and width. Let us place these cubes one upon the other, until the entire 306 are formed into a single column. No better place to do this than oil the sidewalk at the head of Wail street,*in Broadway, before Trinity Church. When the last cube is placed on the summit of our golden column, we must wonder as we observe that the column is twenty-two feet higher than the spire of Trinity Church. But we put this wealth to better use than erecting with it a glittering column which only pleases the eye. We will divide the $100,000,000 among 1,000 poor men who have to toil from year to year to earn sufficient to pay for the common necessaries of life. We willenrich these deserving men by giving to each SIOO,OOO. a lose these men/ wishing to protect children from , future want, invest their respective fortunes in some bank-ing-house which pays seven percent, compound interest. For twenty-one years they allow their investment ta stand untouched, drawing neither principal nor interest; and at the end of that time they are amazed and delighted to learn that each man’s SIOO,OOO has increased to $414,057—m0re than quadrupled in twen-ty-one years. * A good deal might be done with a vast fortune of $100,000,000; but when its possessor is stretched on the bed of sickness, when his last illness is upon him, gold is useless as a bribe to Death. N. ¥. Weekly.