Nevada County picayune., 1889-07-31
END OF THE WORLD.
Speculations Concerning the Time
 and Manner of It,

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 The manner in which the world will end is not, perhaps, q matter of prime importance to the present gen eration, but 1t is question in regard to which even the unlearned may be permitted to be curious. A sacred writer has remarked that when the final catastrophe comes the heavens will be rolled together as a scroll and the earth will melt with fervent heat. He had probably seen volcanoes, eX perienced earthquakes and so gath cred some idea of the irresistible character of Subterraneau forces. A commonly received theory among scientists is that the atmosphere will gradually be absorbed into the sur face of the earth; that lakes, rivers and the seas will dry up, and in the process animal and vegetable life will necessarily disappear. Some writers on astronomy have depictured with gral .iic and touching detail the last man in this withered and icy world retreatine toward the equator and expiring Tn the only locality where remained drop of water and lingering bit of vegetation. Recent writers have advanced other theories that are plausible, and suggest the coming of the catastrophe in an era not so remote. We know that the surface of the earth on which we live is a crust or shell spread thinly over we know not what. Under us are imprisoned forces capable of shattcring the crust and annihilating us at any moment. We enjoy regu- lar seasons and certain equability of climate owing to the fact that in
 
 the earth always presents it's axis at a certain angle to that luminary, by which means we have alternately summer and winter. All life depends upon the amount of heat we receive from the sun, and the amount of heat on the ohliquity with which its rays strike the earth's surface. The region between the tropics receives them almost vertically, which rem ders the heat nearly insupportable. The temperate zones receive them at a greater angle, and the polar regions so oliquely that the amount of heat at the poles is infinitesimal. As a consequence the polar summer, though long, is cold and insufficient to melt the vast masses of ice and snow accumulated during the winter, which renders all forms of life impos- sible.
 Let us suppose that by some un- forscen contingency the earth were slightly turned from it's present posi- tion in relation to the sun and com pelled to present the ends of it's axis at different angle to that body. Then lthe suns rays would be dis trihutcd over the surface of our i planet in such a manner that what are now the torrid regions might be- come temperate, the temperate re- gions polar, and the polar regions, receiving the polar rays vertically, would become tropical. The regions which we now occupy would become sterile, covered with ice and, of course, uninhahitable. Those of their teemmg millions who had not frozen to death or had not perished by famine would be obliged to emt- grate to the parts of the earth thus rendered temperate or tropical if in the new distribution these regions formed part of the dry land-that is, if they were not within the limits of the present ocean.
 Astronomers will tell you that this suggestion is impossible and absurd. Why is it impossible? Geologists say that q great part of the United States and the northern part of Flu