Daily Yellowstone journal., 1890-07-26
THE LAST PEOPLE.

IT'S in the year A. ID. 9,450, 235. A
dense fog envelops the entire globe,
growing thinner and lighter only at the
poles. The rays OF the sundisk are
dotted with millions of dark spots and
cannot penetrate the thick, wintry fog;
over the earth a pale red twilight
spreads.
Nature round about is dead and bar
ren The dome of the horizon is not
visible; no friendly star sheds its light
upon this immense, rigid desert; the
soft rays of the moon have ceased to
shine over the giant snow fields and icy
prairies; they are no longer reflected
upon the glistening surface of the mar
row, far expanding frozen seas, the
remnants of the oceans of the world
not yet absorbed by the sunlight.
And should this impenetrable fog
break away and the continuous fall of
the fine, misty snow come to an end we
would still seek v;linly for the trusty
comrade of the earth, the moon. Thou
sands of years ago she was destroyed,
partly through a constantly increasing
cold and partly cared by the burning
sunrays, (which no atmosphere could
soften, and her fragments were hurled
into the immense space of the earth.
1t was thought that the end of the
world had come then, and this terrible
catastrophe caused dreadful earth
quakes, floods and storms, the descrip-
ton of which came down from gener.
alton to generation In myths and
legends, until at last the influence of
the noe upon the earth, the tides and
eclipses of the sun was not even known
by name to the human race of that
period.
As far az the eye a reach this des-
ert lies in the throes of an almost CON-
plete rigidity. The fire in the interior
Of the earth is burned out; the rays of
the sun have lost their power to warm
It. Everything is cold and dead. But
there is still some organic life under the
white shroud; there are still human
beings living in this inhospitable viii
derness, remnants of a dwarfed and
stunned tribe, who for thousands of
years have been accustomed to wiring
day by day a hazardous existence from
the inimical elements; a tribe who
know nothing of a life during medieval
days in warmer climes, where a volup-
tuous end magnificent fora grew under
deep blue sky and earth and air and
were peopled with manifold ami.
NAL creatures. For thousands of years
the inhabitants of the globe have
known no other zone than the north
ern, no other nature but one of snow
and Ice and cold. There were many
old scientific records which spoke of a
milder climate, and sagacious hypoth-
eses were laid down in these volumes
of an antediluvian fauna and fora; but
later on nobody believed them or imag-
ined it possible that they could ever
have existed.
During an Unreasonable period Of
time the earth had gradually cooled
of, and this cooling off emanated from
the poles, moving slowly and gradually
for thousands Of years were mere
seconds on the dial of the clock Of the
world-toward the equator. What a
sensation il aroused when in ancient
times, for instance in the Nineteenth
century, fossil remnants Of a vegeta-
ton and animal world were found way
up in the north underneath the ice and
snow, such as could have existed only
in the tropic zone, not thinking then
that the time would come when the
equator would reveal under its cover
of Ice and snow the fossils of its own
tropical nature.
Constantly the inhabitable space OF
the earth grows smaller, the battle for
existence and life becomes more severe,
resistance against the elementary pow
ers weakens and the human race grad
ually melted away, until in the year OF
9,450, 235 il had become almost extinct.
This remnant Il a race, which had once
covered the entire earth ball and boast
ed OF its mastership Of the world, is
found secluded in huts of ice way up
In the mountains Of the Loango region
of western Africa. near the former sea
coast. Hardly distinguishable from
their surroundings, 1t is difficult to find
these human habitations. Woe to the
lonely wanderer who should lose his
way. He would perish surely, unless a
streak of the north light, which now
and then brca..s through the 10y, comes
to guide him Alright.
No star, not even the sun, a point
him on his way, for everything Is g
veloped In this impcnetrable mist.
Long, narrowly winding tunnels lead
through the snow into the cave like
huts IN which these few human beings
live with their last trusty companions
the reindeer and the dog. One OF
their greatest labors is to keep the hut
and its entrance free from the snow,
which is continually drifting, and to
sather the necessary nourishment for
ihsse animals. should they neglect to