News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1899-09-27
THE LAST MOaITAL.
SPECULATION AS TO WHAT WILL
OVERTAKE HIM.

How viii This Last Relic of the Teemins
Millions Die?--Wni lie Die of Thirst
After the Water Has Been Sucked Away:
Will the sun Ever Grow Cold.
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-air-
less, waterless, lifeless. But long,
long before that time man will be eX-
tinct, will have disappeared so utterly
that not so much as the bleached skel-
eton of human being will be visible
on all the millions of square miles of
the surface of this planet.
Unless by some huge and universal
cataclysm the whole race is swept at
once into eternity, it is but reasonable
to suppose 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 a solitude that
may be imagined but not described.
How will he die. this last relic Of the
teeming millions that once transform
ed tie face of the globe and ruled I'M
disputed masters of every other living
thing? There are many fates that may
befall him. He may go mad with the
horror Of loneliness and himself end
his own miserable existence. He may
be eaten by the vast reptiles or giant
insects which will then probably in
fest 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 polume 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 valleys and mounting slow
Iy TO the hiIltops, where the last re-
mains Of animal life are striving for
existence The last man will climb
higher and higher, but eventually the
suGiCcariug invisible food will reach
and drown him.
Again, it is said that the earth as it
gets older is cracking like dry mudl
These cracks will increase until at last
they will let the waters of the ocean
and rivers sink into the fiery centre of
the globe. Then will occur an eXplo-
sion so terrible as may startle the in
habitants of neighboring worlds.
The last man in this case will proba-
bly, be some Arctic explorer or Eski-
mo, whom the vast plains of icd
around will save from instant death
and leave to grill few moments till
the ice continents are swallowed by
redhot gases and steam.
Suppose these earth cracks develop
more slowly, they may suck
away the water without devastating
explosions. Then the last mans fate
will be the worst describable. He Will
die of thirst. The scene of his death
wijl probably be the great valley in
the bed of the Atlantic ocean, OF The
Brazilian coast, halfway between Rio
Janeiro and the cape where now six
miles Of green water lie between the
steamers keel and the abyssmal slime
beneath.
The Antartic polar ice croD has been
growing thicker and heavier for I'M
counted 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 centre. At that
centre it cannot be less than twelve
miles in thickness-twice as thick as
Mount Everett Is high. Suppose it
splits. Imagine the gigantic mass Of
water and ice that will come sweep
ing up north over the oceans and con-
tinents 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 miserably
of cold and starvation looking down
on 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
other manuals and last until the sun,
as come day it must, grow dull 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 to-day is para
disc.