The Wonders At Compound Interest

Uut lew people havo anythinghke ai) adequate sense of the vast cuniulative power of compouud interest. Some mathematically incliued person recontly published in a New York paper tho amount of a cent supposed to bo put out ut compouud interest at tho birth of Clirist and eontinued at iuterest up to 1870. The amount thu 6tated waa expreesed bc forty-fivo oonsecutive figures, which, however, even at that, seems to be far from the mark. Profeaaor Klin ger, of the HaDuuin Commercial School of tuis city, has gone to tho trouble of making tho caleulation, nnd finds tho ainount thus : $2, 098,785,469,721,770,■2 8 0,5 17,336,007,361,941,519.902,773,447.38 - or rearly. threo times the amount given by the New York paper. It is supposed tbat the New York tnathematioiaq disearded somo of the decimals i;i tho beaiirining of Lis computation, for it is evident that even tho billioüth part of a cent must produco au enorrnous surn at compound interest du ring 1S70 years, if iu that timo a cent would produco an amount incomprehensible by the humm mind, and which tho matheniaticiana 9uy would exceed the valuc of seen quadrillions of globes of pure gold, each of the ize of onr eartli, and rating the gold at twenty dollars an ounoe! The oinouut of a etnt at s'mple interest for the sanee time, 1870 years, would be but #1.12.