PERPETUATION OF LIVING BEINGS. 119 



Plants. Plants. 



1 x 50 in 1st year = 50 



50 x 50 " 2nd " = 2,500 



2,500 x 50 " 3rd " = 125,000 



125,000 x 50 " 4th " = 6,250,000 



6,250,000 x 50 " 5th " = 312,500,000 



312,500,000 x 50 " 6th " = 15,625,000-,000 



15,625,000,000 x 50 " 7th " = 781,250,000,000 



781,250,000,000 x 50 " 8th " = 39,062,500,000,000 



39,062,500,000,000 x 50 " 9th " s= 1,953,125,000,000,000 



51,000,000 sq. miles — the dry sur- ) 



face of the earth x 27,878,400— I =sq. ft. 1,421,798,400,000,000 



the number of sq. ft. in 1 sq. mile ) 



being 531,326,600,000,000 

 square feet less than would be required at the end of the ninth year. 



You will see from this that, at the end of the first 

 year the single plant will have produced fifty more of its 

 kind ; by the end of the second year these will have 

 increased to 2,500 ; and so on, in succeeding years, yoa 

 get beyond even trillions ; and I am not at all sure that 

 I could tell you what the proper arithmetical denomina- 

 tion of the total number really is ; but, at any rate, you 

 will understand the meaning of all those noughts. 

 Then you see that, at the bottom, I have taken the 

 51,000,000 of square miles, constituting the surface of 

 the dry land ; and as the number of square feet are 

 placed under and abstracted from the number of seeds 

 that would be produced in the ninth year, you can see 

 at once that there would be an immense number more 

 of plants than there would be square feet of ground for 

 their accommodation. This is certainly quite enough 

 to prove my point ; that between the eighth and ninth 

 year after being planted, the single plant would have 

 stocked the whole available surface of the earth. 



This is a thing which is hardly conceivable— it seems 



