A WORLD OF ICE.
A WORLD OF ICE.
A WORLD OF ICE.
“Not exactly,” replied the Columbian chancellor. “It is not cold which produces glaciers,—it isheat.
“If the sun did not evaporate the sea water there would be no clouds, and but for the sun there would be no wind. For the formation of glaciers a sun is necessary, to vaporize the water and to transport it in clouds and then to condense it. Every kilogram of vapor formed represents a quantity of solar heat sufficient to raise five kilograms of cast-iron to its fusing point (110°). By lessening the intensity of the sun’s action we exhaust the glacier supply.
“So that it is not the snow, nor the glaciers which will cover the earth, but the frozen remnant of the sea. For a long time previously streams and rivers will have ceased to exist and every atmospheric current will have disappeared,unless indeed, before giving up the ghost, the sun shall have passed through one of those spasms to which we referred a moment ago, shall have released the ice from sleep and have produced new clouds and aerial currents, reawakened the springs, the brooks and the rivers, and after this momentary but deceitful awakening, shall have fallen back again into lethargy. That day will have no morrow.”
Another voice, that of a celebrated electrician, was heard from the center of the hemicycle.
“All these theories of death by cold,” he observed, “are plausible. But the end of the world by fire? This has been referred to only in connection with the comet. It may happen otherwise.
“Setting aside a possible sinking of the continents into the central fire, brought about by an earthquake on a large scale, or some widespread dislocation of the earth’s crust, it seems to me that, without any collision, a superior will might arrest our planet midway in its course and transform its motion into heat.”
“A will?” interrupted another voice. “But positive science does not admit the possibility of miracles in nature.”
“Nor I, either,” replied the electrician. “When I say ‘will,’ I mean an ideal, invisible force. Let me explain.
“The earth is flying through space with a velocity of 106,000 kilometers per hour, or 29,460 meters per second.If some star, active or extinct, should emerge from space, so as to form with the sun a sort of electro-dynamic couple with our planet on its axis, acting upon it like a brake—if, in a word, for any reason, the earth should be suddenly arrested in its orbit, its mechanical energy would be changed into molecular motion, and its temperature would be suddenly raised to such a degree as to reduce it entirely to a gaseous state.”
“Gentlemen,” said the director of the Mont Blanc observatory, from his chair, “the earth might perish by fire in still another manner. We have lately seen in the sky a temporary star which, in a few weeks, passed from the sixteenth to the fourth magnitude. This distant sun had suddenly become 50,000 times hotter and more luminous. If such a fate should overtake our sun, nothing living would be left upon our planet. It is probable, from the study of the spectrum of the light emitted by this burning star, that the cause of this sudden conflagration was the entrance of this sun and its system into some kind of nebula. Our own sun is travelling with a frightful velocity in the direction of the constellation of Hercules, and may very well some day encounter an obstacle of this nature.”
“To resume,” continued the director of the Paris observatory, “after all we have just now heard, we see that our planet will be at a loss to choose among so many modes of death. I have as little fear now as before of any dangerfrom the present comet. But it must be confessed that, solely from the point of view of the astronomer, this poor, wandering earth is exposed to more than one peril. The child born into this world, and destined to reach the age of maturity, may be compared to a person stationed at the entrance to a narrow street, one of those picturesque streets of the sixteenth century, lined with houses at whose every window is a marksman armed with a good weapon of the latest model. This person must traverse the entire length of the street, without being stricken down by the weapons levelled upon him at close range. Every disease which lies in wait and threatens us, is on hand: dentition, convulsion, croup, meningitis, measles, smallpox, typhoid fever, pneumonia, enteritis, brain fever, heart disease, consumption, diabetes, apoplexy, cholera, influenza, etc., etc., for we omit many, and our hearers will have no difficulty in supplementing this off-hand enumeration. Will our unhappy traveller reach the end of the street safe and sound? If he does, it will only be to die, just the same.
“LIKE A CHARGE OF SHOT UPON A MEADOW LARK.”
“LIKE A CHARGE OF SHOT UPON A MEADOW LARK.”
“LIKE A CHARGE OF SHOT UPON A MEADOW LARK.”
“Thus our planet pursues its way along its heavenly path, with a speed of more than 100,000 kilometers per hour, and, at the same time, the sun hurries it on, with all the planets, toward the constellation of Hercules. Recapitulating what has just been said, and allowing for what may have been omitted: it may meet a comet ten or twenty times larger than itself, composed of deleterious gases which would render the atmosphere irrespirable; it may encounter a swarm of uranolites, which would have upon it the effect of a charge of shot upon a meadow lark; it may meet in its path an invisible sun, much larger than itself, whose shock would reduce it to vapor; it may encounter a sun which would consume it in the twinkling of an eye, as a furnace would consume an apple thrown into it; it may be caught in a system of electric forces, which would act like a brake upon its eleven motions, and which would either melt it, or set it afire, like a platinum wire in a strong current; it may lose the oxygen which supports life; it may be blown up like the crust over a crater; it may collapse in some great earthquake; its dryland may disappear, in a second deluge, more universal than the first; it may, on the contrary, lose all its water, an element essential to its organic life; under the attraction of some passing body, it may be detached from the sun and carried away into the cold of stellar space; it may part, not only with the last vestige of its internal heat, which long since has ceased to have any influence upon its surface, but also with the protecting envelope which maintains the temperature necessary to life; one of these days, when the sun has grown dark and cold, it may be neither lighted, nor warmed, nor fertilized; on the other hand, it may be suddenly scorched by an outburst of heat, analogous to what has been observed in temporary stars; not to speak of many other sources of accidents and mortal peril, whose easy enumeration we leave to the geologists, paleontologists, meteorologists, physicists, chemists, biologists, physicians, botanists, and even to the veterinary surgeons, inasmuch as the arrival of an army of invisible microbes, if they be but deadly enough, or a well-established epidemic, would suffice to destroy the human race and the principal animal and vegetable species, without working the least harm to the planet itself, from a strictly astronomical point of view.”
Just as the speaker was uttering these last words, a voice, which seemed to come from a distance, fell, as it were, from the ceiling overhead. But a few words of explanation may here perhaps be desirable.
As we have said, the observatories established on the higher mountains of the globe were connected by telephone, with the observatory of Paris, and the sender of the message could be heard at a distance from the receiver, without being obliged to apply any apparatus directly to the ear. The reader doubtless recollects that, at the close of the preceding session, a phonogram from Mt. Gaurisankar stated that a photophonic message, which would be at once deciphered, had been received from the inhabitants of Mars. As the translation of this cipher had not arrived at the opening of the evening session, the bureau of communications had connected the Institute with the observatory by suspending a telephonoscope from the dome of the amphitheater.
The voice from above said:
“The astronomers of the equatorial city of Mars warn the inhabitants of the earth that the comet is moving directly toward the earth with a velocity nearly double that of the orbital velocity of Mars. Mechanical motion to be transformed into heat, and heat into electrical energy. Terrible magnetic storms. Move away from Italy.”
The voice ceased amid general silence and consternation. There were, however, a few sceptics left, one of whom, editor ofLa Libre Critique, raising his monocle to his right eye, had risen from the reporters desk and had exclaimed in a penetrating voice:
“I am afraid that the venerable doctors of the Instituteare the victims of a huge joke. No one can ever persuade me that the inhabitants of Mars—admitting that there are any and they have really sent us a warning—know Italy by name. I doubt very much if one of them ever heard of the Commentaries of Cæsar or the History of the Popes, especially as”—
The orator, who was launching into an interesting dithyrambus, was at this point suddenly squelched by the turning off of the electric lights. With the exception of the illuminated square in the ceiling, the room was plunged in darkness and the voice added these six words: “This is the despatch from Mars;” and thereupon the following symbols appeared on the plate of the telephonoscope:
As this picture could only be seen by holding the head in a very fatiguing position, the president touched a bell and an assistant appeared, who by means of a projector andmirror transferred these hieroglyphics to a screen on the wall behind the desk, so that every one could readily see and analyze them at their leisure. Their interpretation was easy; nothing indeed could be more simple. The figure representing the comet needed no explanation. The arrow indicates the motion of the comet towards a heavenly body, which as seen from Mars presents phases, and sparkles like a star; this means the earth, naturally so delineated by the Martians, for their eyes, developed in a medium less luminous than ours, are somewhat more sensitive and distinguish the phases of the Earth, and this the more readily because their atmosphere is rarer and more transparent. (For us the phases of Venus are just on the limit of visibility.) The double globe represents Mars looking at the Kaiser sea, the most characteristic feature of Martian geography, and indicates a velocity for the comet double the orbital velocity, or a little less, for the line does not quite reach the edge. The flames indicate the transformation of motion into heat; the aurora borealis and the lightning which follow, the transformation into electric and magnetic force. Finally, we recognize the boot of Italy, visible from Mars, and the black spot marks the locality threatened, according to their calculation, by one of the most dangerous fragments of the head of the comet; while the four arrows radiating in the direction of the four cardinal points of the compass seem to counsel removal from the point menaced.
The photophonic message from the Martians was much longer and far more complicated. The astronomers on Mt. Gaurisankar had previously received several such, and had discovered that they were sent from a very important, intellectual and scientific center situated in the equatorial zone not far from Meridian bay. The last message, whose general meaning is given above, was the most important. The remainder of it had not been transmitted, as it was obscure and it was not certain that its exact meaning had been made out.
The president rang his bell for order. He was about to sum up what had been said, before adjourning the meeting.
“Gentlemen,” he began, “although it is after midnight, it will be of interest, before we separate, to summarize what has been told us in these two solemn sessions.
“The last despatch from Gaurisankar may well impress you. It seems clear that the inhabitants of Mars are farther advanced in science than ourselves, and this is not surprising, for they are a far older race and have had centuries innumerable in which to achieve this progress. Moreover, they may be much more highly organized than we are, they may possess better eyes, instruments of greater perfection, and intellectual faculties of a higher order. We observe, too, that their calculations, while in accord with ours as to the collision, are more precise, for they designate the very point which is to receive the greatest shock. The advice to flee from Italy shouldtherefore be followed, and I shall at once telephone the Pope, who at this very moment is assembling the prelates of entire Christendom.
“So the comet will collide with the earth, and no one can yet foresee the consequences. But in all probability the disturbance will be local and the world will not be destroyed. The carbonic-oxide is not likely to penetrate the respirable portions of the atmosphere, but there will be an enormous development of heat.
“As to the veritable end of the world, of all the hypotheses which today permit us to forecast that event the most probable is the last—that explained to us by the learned chancellor of the Columbian academy: the life of the planet depends upon the sun; so long as the sun shines humanity is safe, unless indeed the diminution of the atmosphere and aqueous vapor should usher in before that time the reign of cold. In the former case we have yet before us twenty million years of life; in the latter only ten.
“Let us then await the night of July 13–14 without despair. I advise those who can to pass these fête days in Chicago, or better still in San Francisco, Honolulu or Noumea. The trans-Atlantic electric air-ships are so numerous and well managed that millions of travellers may make the journey before Saturday night.”
THE LAST JUDGMENT.(From the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.)
THE LAST JUDGMENT.(From the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.)
THE LAST JUDGMENT.(From the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.)