The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1899-06-22
THE LAST MORTAL.
From Answers.

rom AhS"tTS.
Astronomers tell us that the day must
come when the earth will, like the moon,
wheel through the heavens a dead and
barren ball of matter-airleSs, waterless,
lifeless. But long, long before that time
man will he extinct, will have disap-
pearGd SO utterly that not so much as
the blcachcd skeleton of a human being
will be visible en- all the millions of
square miles Of surface of this planet.
Unless by some huge and universal cata-
clysm the whole race is swept at once
into eternity, II is but reasonable to sup
pose that man, like any other race of
animals, will disappear slowly, and that
eventually there will be but a single
human being left-some old, old man,
gray-headed and bearded, and left to
wander alone in solitude that may be
imagined but not described.
How will he die this last relic of the
teeming millions that once transformed
the face of the globe and ruled unds-
puted masters of every other living
thing? There are many fates that may
befall him. He may so mad with the
horror of loneliness and himself end his
own miserable existence. He may be
eaten by the vast reptiles or giant in
sects which will then probably infest the
solitudes. But his fate may be far
weirder and more dreadful. Scientists
say that, as we burn the coal and timber
we are still so richly supplied with we
let loose into the atmosphere an ever in
creasing volume of carbonic acid gas.
Much of this Is taken up by plants, but
not all. 1t must increase and eventually
poison the breathable air, filling the val
leys and mounting slowly to the hill
tops, where the last remains of animal
life are striving for existence. The last
man will climb still higher and higher,
but eventually the suffocating invisible
flood will reach and drown him.
Again, it is said that the earth as it
gets older is cracking like dry mud.
These cracks will increase until at last
they will let the waters of the ocean and
rivers sink into the fiery center of the
globe. Then will occur an explosion 50
terrible as may startle the inhabitants
of neighboring worlds The last man
in this case will probably be some Arctic
explorer or Eskimo, whom the vast
plains of ice around will save from in
stant death and leave to grill a few mo-
ments till the ice continents are swal-
| lowed by redhot gases and steam. Sup
pose these earth cracks develop more
slowly they may suck away the water
without devastating explosions. Then
the last mans fate will be the worst de-
scribable. He will die of thirst. The
/
great valley in the bed of the Atlantic
ocean, off the Brazilian coast, half way
between Rio Janeiro and the cape, where
now six miles of green water lie between
the steamers keel and the abyssmal
slime beneath. There hopelessly digging
in the ever-drying mud, he must perish
and leave his bones to parch on a water
| less planet.
The Antarctic polar ice cap has been
| growing thicker and heavier for uncount-
! ed ages. The distance from the south
! pole to the edge of this ice cap is 400
miles. The ice rises steadily from the
| edge to the center. At that center il can
| not be less than twelves miles in thick
ness-twice as thick as Mount Everett
| is high, Suppose 1t splits. Imagine the
| gigantic mass of water and ice that will
come sweeping up north over the oceans
| and continents of the earth Where
| then, will the last man breathe his final
| gasp? High up in the SHOWS of some
great range he will perish mserably Of
cold and starvation, looking down on a
| huge shallow sea beneath whose tossing
waters will lie the whole of the races of
| the world. or last, and perhaps dreariest
| fate of all, the human race may outlive
| mammals and last until the sun, as
some day 1t must, grows dun and cold,
| and vegetation dies from the chilled
earth. The miserable remnant of earth's
people must then slowly die out after
ages of an existence to which that OF
the Eskimo of today is a paradise.