The Weiser signal. [volume] (Weiser, Idaho) 1890-1904, 1901-12-05
CHAPTER VIII.

No periodical comet, as l knew, was
hood of the sun, and no stranger of that
kind had been detected from the observa-
tories making its way sunward before
we left the earth. Here, however, was
Enthusiastically comet rushing toward
the sun, f1inging out great cleaning
tail behind it and so close to us that
wondered to see it remaining almost
motionless in the sky. This phenomenon
was soon explained to me, and the ex-
PLANTATION was of most disquieting
character.
The stranger had already been per-
ceived not only from the flagship, but
from the other members of the squad
ron, and, as now learned, efforts had
been made to get out of it's neighbor-
hood, but for some reason the electrical
apparatus did not work perfectly, some
mysterious disturbing force acting upon
it, and SO it had been found impossible
to avoid an encounter with the comet
not an actual coming into contact with
it, but falling into the sphere of its
influence.
In fact was informed that for sew
eral hours the squadron had been drag
ging along in the wake of comet, very
much as boats are sometimes towed off
by a wounded whale. Every effort had
been made to so adjust the electric
charge upon the ships that they would
be repealed from the cometic ass; but,
owing apparently to eccentric changes
continually going on in the electric
charge affecting the olashing mass of
meteoric bodies which constituted the
head of the comet, we found it impossi-
BILE to escape from it's influence
At one instant the ships would be re-
PEELED, Immediately afterward they
would be attracted again, and thus they
were dragged hither and thither, but
never able to break from the invisible
leash which the comet had cast upon
them. The latter was moving with
enormous velocity toward the sun, and
consequently we were being carried
back again, away from the object of our
expedition, with fair prospect of being
dissipated in blazing vapors when the
comet had dragged us, unwilling pris-
oners, into the immediate neigh borhood
of the solar furnace.
/ Even the most cool headed lost his
self control in this terrible emergency.
Every kind of device that experience or
the imagination could suggest was
tried, but nothing would do. Still on
we rushed with the electrified atoms
composing the tail of the comet sweep.
Ing to and fro over the mem bers of the
squadron, as they shifted their position,
like the plume of smoke from gigantic
steamer drifting over the sea birds that
follow in it's course.
Was this to end it all, then? Was this
the fate that Providence had in store for
us? Were the hopes of the earth thus to
perish? Was the expedition to be wreck
ed and it's fate to remain forever I'M
known to the planet from which it had
set forth? And was our beloved globe,
which had seemed SO fair to us when
we last looked upon it near by and in
whose defense we had resolved to spend
our last breath, to be left helpless and
at the mercy of its implaoable foe in the
sky?
At length we gave ourselves up for
lost. There seemed to be no possible
way to free ourselves from the baleful
grip Of this terrible and unlocked for
enemy.
AS the comet approached the sun its
electric energy rapidly increased, and,
watching it with telescopes-for We