400 



Popular Science Monthly 



a man. War is a costly undertaking. 



It was once even less efficient and 

 more costly. In the Civil War, the num- 

 ber of Northern soldiers who died was 

 360,222, while the South lost, at the low- 

 est estimate, 250,000. That war cost the 

 North $6,189,929,908, while the South's 

 bill was at least 83.000,000,000.^ It 

 therefore cost approximately $15,059.97 

 to slaughter a man. Killing is done in a 

 more wholesale fashion nowadays. 



Fortunately, the warring nations are 

 not obliged to gather together the forty 

 billions and transport it at one time to 

 the front. If they did, it wOuld require 

 fifteen trains of seventy cars each, and 

 one of fifty-seven, each car being of the 

 fifty-ton pattern used in hauling coal 

 from the Pennsylvania mines to tide- 

 water at New York harbor. This would 

 interfere with the movement of food sup- 

 plies, guns and other munitions of war 

 for the time being. The weight of the 

 gold would be 55,440 tons. 



Even if it were desired to do this, 

 there is not enough visible gold in the 

 world to permit it. According to the 

 figures of the director of the mint, the 

 world's production of the precious metal 

 between the years 1850 and 1913 inclus- 

 ive, was $12,072,058,618, or less than 

 one-third the estimated cost of the war. 

 This, added to the $225,000,000 assumed 

 to be in the hands of the potentates and 

 other wealthy Europeans prior to the 

 discovery of America, and the $3,383,- 

 224,000 figured to have been brought to 

 view between the time Columbus first 

 saw the Western Continent, and the dis- 

 covery of gold in California, still leaves 

 a deficit of nearly twenty-five billions 

 to be made up otherwise. 



But let us suppose there were forty bil- 

 lions of gold in the hands of mankind, 

 and that through some gigantic financial 

 operation it had reached America and 

 been coined into double eagles. There 

 would be, if the gold were alloyed with 

 other metal to the usual degree of fine- 

 ness, 2,222,222,220 of them, enough to 

 cover the site of the Woolworth Build- 

 ing to a depth of seven feet eight inches, 

 or form a pillar the height of the build- 

 ing, seven hundred and fifty feet, and 

 twenty-two feet square. If placed on 

 edge and face to face, they would form 

 a roll 3,653.42 miles long. This roll 



would extend from New York to a 

 point in the Pacific Ocean about six hun- 

 dred miles west of San Francisco. Or, 

 taking their diameter as one and five-six- 

 teenths inches, they would pave a 

 boulevard three hundred and tifty-one 

 feet wide extending from one end to 

 the island of Manhattan to the other 

 a distance of thirteen miles. What 

 a shining road that would be ! The 

 Irishman who expected to pick up dol- 

 lars in the streets as soon as he landed, 

 would literally be able to do it, assum- 

 ing that the gold pieces were no better 

 secured than is the surface of some of 

 New York's thoroughfares. That great 

 highway, broader than Broadway, would 

 be the nearest approach to the streets of 

 the New Jerusalem described by John, 

 that the world could ever expect to see. 

 And if all these gold pieces were laid flat 

 in a single row, edge to edge, they would 

 extend 43,841.12 miles around the waist- 

 coat of the globe. 



This would, indeed, be a "demonstra- 

 tion of power and wealth" that would 

 make the display of jewels, relics and 

 gold plate of the Teutonic ruling families 

 look like a penny peep show. 



A Mystifying Chemical Trick 



AP L A I N blue handkerchief is 

 shown to the audience. Wlien the 

 handkerchief is warmed it turns white 

 and when heated resumes its former 

 color. 



Make a starch paste and add enough 

 water to the paste to thin it. Then add 

 sufficient tincture of iodine to color the 

 liquid blue ; a few drops will be enough. 

 Dye a white handkerchief with this blue 

 liquid and when the handkerchief is dry 

 it is ready for the trick. 



Raising a Motorcycle Stand 

 Automatically 



A MOTORCYCLIST may save the 

 time and trouble of raising the 

 stand when the machine is pushed off, 

 by fastening one end of a door-spring 

 to the stand near the bottom, and the 

 other end to a convenient place on the 

 luggage carrier. While the machine is 

 on the stand, the spring is stretched, but 

 the removal of the weight releases it, 

 and the stand is pulled back into place. 



