Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 March 1899 — 100,000 Years Spent in Reading. [ARTICLE]

100,000 Years Spent in Reading.

The annual aggregate circulation of the papers of the world is calculated to be 12,000,000,000 copies. To grasp any idea of this magnitude we may state that it would cover no fewer than 10,450 square miles of surface; that it is printed on 781,250 tons of paper; and, further, that if the number, 12,000,000,000, represented, instead of copies, seconds, it would take over 380 years for them to elapse. In lieu of this arrangement, we might press and pile them vertically upwards to gradually reach our highest mountain tops; topping all these and even the highest Alps, the pile would reach the magnificent altitude of 490, or in round numbers 500, miles. Calculating that the average man spends five minutes reading his paper in the day (this is a very low estimate), we find that the people of the world altogether annually occupy time equivalent to more than 100,000 years reading the papers.