Dr. Price, in the second edition of his "Observations on Reversionary
Payments," says: "It is well known to what prodigious sums money
improved for some time at compound interest will increase. A penny so
improved from our Saviour's birth, as to double itself every fourteen
years--or, what is nearly the same, put out at five per cent. compound
interest at our Saviour's birth--would by this time have increased
to more money than could be contained in 150 millions of globes, each
equal to the earth in magnitude, and all solid gold. A shilling, put
out at six per cent. compound interest would, in the same time, have
increased to a greater sum in gold than the whole solar system could
hold, supposing it a sphere equal in diameter to the diameter of
Saturn's orbit. And the earth is to such a sphere as half a square
foot, or a quarto page, to the whole surface of the earth."