The Forrest City times., 1899-07-21
THE LAST MORTAL.
Speculation as to tho Fate That wiIl Finally Overtakc the Last
 Man on Earth.

Astronomers tell us that the day
 must come when the earth will, like
 the moon, wheel through the heavens
 dead and barren ball of matter-air-
 less, waterless, lifeless. But long. long
 before that time man will be extinct,
 will have disappeared so utterly that
 not so much as the bleached skeleton
 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
 lace 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 no described. How will he die, this last relic of the | teeming millions that once transformed | the face of the globe and ruled undis-
 puted masters of every other living | thing? There are many fates that may 1 befall him. He may go mad with the | horror of loneliness and himself end his own miserable existence He may
 De eaten by the vast reptiles or giant | insects which will then probably infest l the solitudes.
 But his fate may be far weirder and 1 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 increasing volume of carbonic 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 hilltops,
 where the last remains of animal life
 are striving for existence. The last
 man will climb higher and higher, but
 eventually the suffoeating 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 | so terrible as may startle the inhab- itants 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 instant death and leave to grill few moments till the ice continents are | swallowed by red-hot gases and steam. Suppose these earth cracks develop more slowly, they may suck away the water without devastating explosiop,. | Then the last mans fate will be the worst describable. He will die of thirst
 The scene of his death will probably be
 the great valley in the bed of the Atlan- tic 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, hope
 lessly 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 is l,iUU niles. l ne Ice rlSeS Stedul1y rom | the edge to the center. At that center | it cannot be less than 12 miles in thick ness-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 continents of the earth Where, then, will the last man breathe
 his final gasp? High up in the snows
 of some great range he will perish mis- | erably 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 mammals and last until the sun, as some day it must, grows dull and coli, | 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 paradise- l London Answers.