Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1872-08-08

ued, and no vessels dared attempt Z
navigate the new channel to the sc;
under such disadvantages. No worC
came over the cable, and the operator a
Hearts Content announced that boil
cables were evidently broken. Various
conjectures were made as to the nature
of the injury inflicted by the comet, ant
the opinion of leading scientific mai
that the comet had fallen into the At
lantic and by its intense heat evapora'
ted an enormous quantity of water
was generally accepted as at least emf.
nently probable.
The fog continued for three weeks
and followed by uninterrupted rains fol
week longer. During that time til,
White Star line sent out their small
steamer "Corsica, the larger steamer:
having no chance the shadows in the
river near Sandy Hook. No arrivals
from Europe had taken place at any
Atlantic port since the collision, except
single steamer, which reached here on
the morning of the 10th of August, just
before the sea began to recede.
The return of the "Corsica" was
looked for with intense anxiety, espec-
tally ON the part of those who had
friends abroad. 1t was thought she
could make the voyage out and back in
fifteen days, but we were to hear from
her before that time expired. On the
tenth day after her departure, the news
was received that she had arrived at
San Francisco.
At first this announcement was re-
ceived with utter incredulity, but dis
patches from the captain and the report
ers soon placed the fact beyond doubt.
She had steered the usual course for
Liverpool after leaving New York, but
the fog, which prevailed during the en-
tire voyage, rendered it impossible for
the officers to obtain an observation to
determine her latitude accurately. Land
was sighted on the tenth day, and as it
was believed to be the high lands of the
west cost of Ireland, the ship was head
ed to the southwark in order to round
Cape Clear. The mouth of the Sacre-
mento River was soon reached, and the
captain being utterly at a loss to know
his whereabouts entered the river, and
soon found himself at San Francisco.
The result of this voyage established
the terrible certainty that the great con-
tinent of the Old World had vanished,
and unless some. portion of Southern
Asia and Africa had escaped, America
was the only habitable part of the globe
that had survived. 1t was also evident
that disappearance of the land of the
eastern hemisphere was not merely the
result of an overflow of the sea, but
inasmuch as the "Corsica" had made
the voyage from New York to San
thus nearly circumnavIgat-
ing the globe in ten days, nearly one
half the planet must have been totally
destroyed.
We were not long to be kept in igno-
rance of the fate of the vanished world.
On the 9Th of September for the first
time since the collision, the fog and rain
had sufficiently abated to permit the
heavens to become visible. On the
night of the 9th, new phenomenon
was presented to the millions of Amer
lea. The moon was nearly full and
shown with her accustomed brightness,
but two new moons, one twice the ap-
parent size of the old moon, and anoth-
er, nearly as large, appeared in COM
pahy with her. Subsequently three
smaller satellites were discovered, but
they were so small as to easily escape
notice. We now knew that Planta-
mour's comet had done its work, and
that the earth had been broken into
4hC SClCilIllt Litll SCI
to calculate the distances of
the new satellites and to compute their
orbits. 1t was found that they were
less than half the distance of the moon,
and that they revolved about the earth
in fourteen and fifteen days respective
ly. 1t was calculated from their COM
parative nearness to the earth, that with
the largest telescopes yet constructed,
objects Of twenty feet in length could
be plainly discerned. Unfortunately
the large English telescopes were no
longer available, but with the Detroit
and Harvard instruments it was soon
ascertained that the larger satellite in
included Southern Europe, while the
one was the former continent
Of Africa. No trace of Eastern Europe
or Asia could be found, while England
had either vanished, or had become one
of the three small and nearly invisible
satellites. The blow had fallen, as was
predicted, somewhere in Siberia and
China, and the teeming millions of the
latter had undoubtedly perished.
With the instruments at our command,
the city Of Paris and other large towns
situated between the Mediterranean and
the Baltic could be easily perceived.
The Spanish Peninsula, and Italy, south
of Rome had disappeared, although the
dome of st. Peters still shone like
point of light. A part of Po-
land was visible, but Russia and Turkey
were blotted out. On the other satellite,
the great lakes of Central Africa could
be defined, but little of interest was
visible. OF course no human beings
could be distinguished, but it was hoped
that life on the new satellites, Europa"
and "Africa," still survived. Mr.. Alvan
Clark, of Boston, immediately began
the construction of huge lens for a
new telescOpe,of three feet greater focal
distance than any lens yet before east.
This task was triumphantly finished
before the winter was over, and the first
observation through the new telescope
showed us that Europa" and ga Africa,"
were as densely populated as ever, and
that the great catastrophe that had sep
arated them forever from us, had not
APPARENTLY affected their pursuits or their
habits. The French were still occupied
with drilling and marshalling troops,
and the Germans were still cultivating
their fields and thronging their beer
gardens, as in former days. The dia-