The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-01-21

Tha comet is now near the sun. Who can inn
aRne the ardOr Of the celestial FIRE intense
enough 20 bring TO the boiling point in an hour
one trlllion three hundred and sixty-two bill
lions, nVe hundred millions cubic miles OF
Wster - the temperature OF ice, rich
enough vet to burn without q pause through
proaeh It without being vaDorized like drop
OF water falling upon hot iron without being
blinded IN the furious glare, We should see. stn-
pened BY vertigo, q luminous ocean, without
shores, an ocean OF flames. whose agitstsd
waves are almost as high SIS the diameter OF the
| ssrta, In the midst OF and above which. through
binding flashes OF lightning. tempestS and thun-
/ Ger, rise, dart forward. fall back, flame and
/ break upon each other in fury. tear each other
into pieces aud spring NJ anew, mountains of
hAme as large as our planet aud far more vOlu-
minous also. darJed forth into the sky by the
INDUSTRIOUS hands OF invisible Ttans, spreading
/ up into the cooling atmosphere. expanding into
clouds OF light, or falling back again in a rain OF
| fire upon the ever burning ocean!
This terrific heat is now the portion Of those
| agonized souls OF the departed upon whom has
| fallen the divine wrath. Penr up in the walls OF
that vast cometary tail, retained by a mystic
| rlous force, they are now tortured by q fire so
Intense as to be 1ncOmprehensibet 10 our earthly
intelhsence. We have estimated the orbit OF
TINS comet TO be elEptical, a0d that It has
period OF 1000 years That is to say it oscllates
/ eternally between sun and sun, roast
ing its freight of damned souls at the fires OF
each aud alternately pluDgng them into ths In
conceivable cold Of Abysmal space"
Donau paused. he was trembling violently
with emotion Drops Of perspiratlon stood
upon his forehead. remained transfixed. He
placed his finger on the comets tail in the dia-
gram and continued:
I'm that enormous receptacle there are i'm
prisoned more than nineteen hundred billions
| OF souls, torturiug to all eternity. Divine bs-
neficence has provided that twenty in each
thousand OF humanity shall be saved. They
are in Paradise singing the praises OF the
Merciful God. But mankind is stepped in wick
edness and refuses TO repent Vile sinners that
We are, We must suffer the just pensltles of our
sins and writhe in the everlasting anguish Of the
spheres. With the eye OF inspiration Dante per
celved the truth. He was even permitted TO
walk among the incalculable population OF the
damned. Do you remember the horror of the
lines:
al torner della mente, che 81 chiuse
Dinanza ALA pieta de- duo cognati"-
My sense reTiving
Straight around see
New torments, new tormented souls, which way
Soccer move or turn or bend my sight.
Vast and innumerable, indeed. There are
| 4S9 comets known to astronomers. Calculate
the capacity of each of these gigantic prison
houses. Estimate the hordes OF the lost as
have done. and you will not wonder at the
| agony of mind to which this raposal of my con-
| hdence in you is a relief
but adiurs you by ell the ties of friendship
| to keep my secret until after shall have passed
| away. You know the rigid code OF science Ii
is not permitted by our craft to look beyond the
boundaries OF strict algebraie sign and symbol.
| Let this be as sacred as your love for me. /
shall be able to sleep tonight. You may GO"
Then Arlata told me OF many subsequent
| conversations, of which be had preserved
copious notes. They we're amplihcitsOns of
| DonaEi's idea and Included calculations of
the capacity and volume Of the cometRry
prisons and OF their orbits. He permitted
me to keep a leaf, OF which the inclosed is a
| fac simils, in DONATES own hand writing. In
a metal box OF Florentine workmanship
| and curious ornamentation he keeps his
| treasure. For a night and day. when
| had established myself in his confidence
be read and translated continuously in his
strange patois until l had heard the whole
| Of the extraordinary theory, exactly as it
was revealed 70 him by Donah between the
| fall OF 1858 and the spring of 1878, just be-
fore she great astronomers death.
OF the authenticity Of the manuscripts, ID
| would be easy to judge by comparison Of
| the handwriting with any known specimen
| OF Donati's ohirography. Arlsta is cer-
| tainly genuine enough and could be put in
| immediate evidence were it not for my
promise to respect his solitude. His tele-
scope is a 4-inch glass by Venetian maker.
With 1t he scans the sky nightly, and
| spends many OF his days making cal
| culations with cbarred sticks upon yellow
leaves OF foreign paper torn from huge
! scrapbooks. He had observed the recent
comet a d Informed me that it was not
/ identical with Biela's He seemed much
| astonishsd when told him that the Mount
| Hamilton astronomers had made that mis-
| take-frst, because he had never heard of
the Mount Hamilton observatory, and Sec
ondly, because any reputable observer
could oonfound the two. at is parabolic, ~
he sand, sin its orbit" The doomed souls
who are imprisone in its tail are roasting
IN the flames of our sun for the first and
only time. Soon they will be plunged into
the awful cold of the eternal abysm, not to
| emerge for trillions Of years Perhaps
they may encounter other solar flames in
their endle voyage through the realms of
Horror and Night, but of that we know
| not,