The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1899-09-22
LAST MAN ON EARTH.
WHAT IS THE DREAD FATE THAT
AWAITS THIS MoRTALi

Many Theories as 80 the Manner Of
Life and Death That VIII Be the
Portion Of the Last Relic of Hu-
niniity ms II Now Exists.
Astronomers tell us that the day
must come when the earth will. like
the moon. wheel through the heayens
q dead and barren ball of matter-air-
less, waterless. i~lfeless. But long, long
before that time man will be extinct,
will have disappeared 80 utterly that
not SO much as the bleached skeleton
of a 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 IL swept al
once into eternity 1t Is but reasonable
to suppose that man, like any other
race Of animals, will disappear slowly
and that eventually there will be but
q 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 trans
formed the face of the globe and ruled
%undisputed masters Of every other liv-
ing thing? There are many fates that
may befall him. He may go mad with
the horror Of loneliness and himself
end his " miserable existence. He
may be eaten by the vast reptiles or
giant insects 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
creaslng volume Of carbonic acid gas.
Much Of this Is taken up by plants,
but lot all. 1t must Increase and
eventually poison the breathable air,
filling the valleys and mounting slowly
to the hill tops. where the last remains
Of animal life are striving for exist
n The last man will climb higher
and higher, but eventually the %suffocat-
Ing Invisible food VIII reach and
drown him.
AkuIu, ~ 10 Sulu ludI JHS Sultu 10 "
gets older Is cracking like dry mud.
These cracks will increase until ut last
they will let the waters Of the oceans
and rivers sink into the fiery centtS OF
the globe. Then will occur IN eXplo.
sion SO terrible as may startle the In.
habitants Of neighbol Alg worlds. The
last man In this case will probably be
oovpn o,,otto oy,>1rvnt, n. NcEirpn sryhno
the vast plains Of Ice around will ave
from instant death and leave to grill q
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 descrlbable. He will die Of
thirst. The scene Of his death will
probably be the great valley In the bed
of the Atlantic ocean, Off the Brazilian
coast, half way between Rio Janeir0
and the cape, where now six miles Of
green water lie between the steamers
keel and the abysmal slime beneath,
There, hopelessly digging in the ever
drying mud, he must perish and leave
his bones to parch on a waterless
planet.
The antarctic polar ice cap has been
growing thicker and heavier for un.
counted ages. The distance from the
south pole to the edge of this ice cap ID
1,4O0 miles. The Ice rises steadily from
the edge to the center. At that center
1t cannot be less than II miles In thick
ness-twice as thick as Mount Everest
10 high.
Suppose 1t spills. Imagine the g.
gantic mass Of water and Ice that will
come sweeping up north overthe ocean
and continents OF the earth! Where,
then, will the last man breathe his
Anal gasp? High up in the SHOWS Of
some great range he will perish miser.
ably 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 pe0haps dreariest fate Of
all, the human race may outlive other
mammals and last until the sun, AZ
some day 1t must, growA 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 today Is a para
disc. 1--WE
Doing without Ii Dot.