why is it so, page-19

Whilst watching a documentary on the National Geograhic channel on something or another a couple of years ago, I took note of one of the narrator's comments...I remembered it because it took me a little by surprise...and that was that all of the gold that has ever been produced on this Earth would comfortably fit under the first level of the Eiffel Tower.

Having travelled through Europe a few months ago, and having visited the famous landmark, I got to appreciate the dimension that was referred to in the documentary...and I must say that considering the thousands of years that civilisaton has existed, and the billions of people that have walked this Earth in that time, it doesn't seem to me that there's an awful lot of it around the place.

That is, assuming of course, that the documentary's facts are accurate...I guess though that I would generally consider a National Geograhic presentation to be fairly accurate.