Many different estimates have been made of the amount of the fortune of Jay Gould, but nothing has ever been told by him, nor did the will reveal anything definite about it. Little difference does it make whether it was $70,000,000 or $170,000,000, so long as it was the greatest that ever one man accumulated in his lifetime. Mr. Gould never intended that anybody should know while he was living, and he saw that his wishes were carried out in the matter. Sixty millions is the figure most frequently mentioned, but generally as a minimum, with a round hundred millions as the other limit. The New York _Tribune_ published the following estimate of his fortune the morning after his death, and it is probably as accurate as any that can be made without access to the will and the records themselves: “There is considerable divergence in the opinions of men who are acquainted with Mr. Gould’s affairs as to the value of the estate which will fall to his heirs. Although his investments have been known to be in certain distinct lines, the reticence of Mr. Gould with regard to many of his transactions has left a considerable margin between maximum and minimum estimates. The character of many of the securities which are his is also so unsettled that there is room for an extreme range of estimates. First in the list of his investments are Western Union and Manhattan, and there is little doubt that his holdings in these two properties aggregate from $35,000,000 to $40,000,000 market value. Of Missouri Pacific stock he may have held from $9,000,000 to $11,000,000, and at current prices the value of his holdings of this property probably reached $5,000,000. The Missouri Pacific system is so complicated with bond issues that it is difficult even for his friends to make a trustworthy guess as to his possessions of the various issues of bonds. Counting in the St. Louis and Iron Mountain issues, the different bonds of the various lines embraced in the Missouri Pacific system and the consolidated issues on the system were held by Mr. Gould to the extent of $20,000,000 or more in market value. He was credited with holding about 220,000 shares of Western Union stock and something like 110,000 shares of Manhattan. At the recent Stock Exchange figures the value of these two interests may be conservatively placed at $36,000,000. Mr. Gould’s investments in Wabash are large, but their market worth is not commensurate with the par value. It would be a generous estimate to place these holdings at a value of $10,000,000. The same amount may represent Mr. Gould’s holdings of the securities of the Texas and Pacific railway. It is difficult to say how largely he was interested in Union Pacific securities, but he was a holder of about $2,000,000 collateral trust notes of the Union Pacific, taken as security for money advances.