Arizona republican., 1899-06-17
FATE or LAST MORTAL
SpeCuIa ion as fo whaf %Il Over
 fake Him.

Astronomers tel us that the day must come when the earth will, like the moon, wheel through the heavens dad and barren ball of matter-air- less, waterisss, lifs!ess. But long. long before that time man will be ex- tinct, will have disappeared so utterly that not 8 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 scme huge and universal cataclysm the whole race is swept at once into eternity, 1t is but reascn- able to suppose that man. like any other race of animals. will disappear s.0wly, 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 q solitude that may te imagined but not described.
 How will he die, this last relic of the teeming millions that once trapsfOrnl- ed the face Of the globe and ruled un- disputed masters of every other Hv- ing thing? There are many fates that my bafalI him. He may go mad with
  end his own miserable existence. He may be eaten by the vast reptiles or giant insects which will then probably infest the solitudes
 But this fate may be far Wierdar and mc-e dreadful. Scientists say that, as we burn the coal and timber we are still so richly supplied with we let loose into the atmosphere sn ever increasing volume of oarbonic acid gas. Much of this is taken up by plants. but not all. It must increase and eventually poison the breathable air, filling the valleys and mounting slowly to the hilltCps, where the last remains of animal life are striving for existence. Tho last man will climb higher and higher. but eventually tho suff0cating invisible flood will Teachi and drown him.
 Again, 1t 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 explo- siCn so terrible Gs may s1artle the in habitants Of neighbOring worlds. The last man in this case will probably be some Arctic explorer CT Eskimo, whom
  from instant death and leave to grill a few moments till the ice continents are swallowed by redlct gases and steam.
 Suppose these earth cracks develop more slowly they may suck away the water without devastating explosions. Then the lasl mans fate will be the worst describab.e 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 Janeiro and the cape, where now six miles of green water lie between the steamers keel and the abysma. slime beneath. There. hopelessly digging in the ever drying mud, he must perish and leave his bones to parch on a Watcrless 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 is 400 miles The ice rises steadily from the edge to the center. At that center it cannot be less than twelve mics in tnickness-twice as thick as Mount Everett is high. Suppose it splits. Imagine the gigantic mass of water and ice that will come sweeping up north over the oceans and c0ntl- nents of the earth. Where, then, will the last man breathe his final gasp? High up in the sn0ws of some great range he will perish miserably of cold and starvation, looking down on d huge shaIlow sea beneath whose toss ing waters will lie the whole of tke races of the world.
 Or last. and perhnps dreariest fate of all the human race may outlive other mammals and las. until the sun, as scme day k must, grows dull and cold and vegetation dies from the chilled earth, The miserable rem-