Readers Dispute Figures

To the Editor,

Regarding John Mattingly’s “Agriculture and War,” Paragraph 3: Naw, John, the bodies just couldn’t have been that deep. Considering that there are 27,878,400 square feet on every mile of the Earth’s surface, and that the average human body contains no more than 2.78 cubic feet of flesh, bones and blood, then you could fit ten million bodies into each square mile.

Even ironing them down to one-tenth foot depth or thickness, you could fit a million bodies in each such square mile. Even the District of Columbia, about 70 sq. mi., could contain 70 million lobbyist corpses, an idea worth considering, and Texas, over 260,000 sq. mi. of land surface, could hold over 250 billion Southern Baptists.

Changing the subject, it is nice to see friend Lisa Jones’s lovely book, “Broken” getting such great reviews, except that her glowing descriptions of Paonia could cause people to move here.

Regards,

Gene Lorig

Paonia, CO

To the Editor:

I haven’t written for quite some time, since it appeared I was just one lonely conservative voice crying in a liberal wilderness: but the August 2009 John Mattingly figures for the number of people killed in warfare was just too much to let go. How could he have come up with such ludicrous figures? How could the editors have failed to recognize them as ludicrous figures?

All of Europe 150 bodies deep? The Middle East and Asia 320 bodies deep? Eastern United States six bodies deep from the Civil War alone? Let’s get real!

Using a very generous one body per square meter, it would take 22.8 trillion bodies to cover Europe one body deep. That is close to 400 times the estimated number of people who have ever lived on earth, using the highest plausible estimate I have seen, and including all those who are still alive.

The people killed in the Civil War, at a still generous one body per square yard; using the highest plausible estimates I have seen including those killed by war related accidents, disease, malnutrition, while in captivity, and civilian casualties would not cover half a square mile one body deep. For eastern United States it was something less than one body per square mile. The soil nutrients in a human body would have little if any measurable effect on an acre of land, much less a square mile.

I have long since given up on most people keeping it real, but – please – at least try to keep it somewhat remotely close to the realm of possibility.

Sincerely,

Lindell Cline

Buena Vista, CO

The author responds:

Several readers correctly challenged the “bodies on the ground” numbers of my last month’s War and Agriculture article. The source for this curious data was a lecture I heard by James Hillman during a promotion for his book A Terrible Love of War. Looking again at my notes, I see that the reference to the stacked bodies was most likely over the acres of farmland in the referenced continents, not the entire continent, or continental area. Sorry about that—all of you who noticed how absurd the published claim actually was, were quite right. This proves Colorado Central readers are good readers.

Thank you. – John Mattingly