The Weiser signal. [volume] (Weiser, Idaho) 1890-1904, 1902-01-16
CHAPTER XXI.


Immediately he began to shout to at
tract our attention, but in the awful
uproar we could not hear him. Getting
together all the ropes that he could lay
his hands on, he steered the ship to
point directly over us, and then drop
ped down within a few yards of the
boiling flood
Now as he hung over our heads and
saw the water up to our very necks and
still swiftly rising he shouted again:
"Catch hold, for Gods sake!''
The three men who were with him
in the ship seconded his cries.
By the time we had fairly grasp
ed the ropes, so rapidly was the flood
rising, we were already afioat. With
the assistance Of Tom and his men we
were rapidly drawn up, and Immediate
ly Tom reversed the electric polarity,
and the ship began to rise.
AT that same instant, with crash
that shivered the air, the immense me.
tallic power house gave way and was
swept tumbling, like hill torn loose
from its base, over the very spot where
moment before we had stood. One
seconds hesitation ON the part of Tom,
and the electrical ship would have been
battered into shapeless wad of metal
10y the careering mass.
When we had attained considerable
height, so that we could see to a great
distance on either side, the spectacle
became even more fearful than it was
when we were close to the surface.
On all sides banks and bikes were
gong down, trees were being uprooted,
buildings were tumbling, and the ocean
was achieving that victory over the
land which had long been it's due, but
which the ingenuity of the inhabitants
OF Mars had postponed for ages.
Far away we could see the front of
the advancing wave crested with foam
that sparkled in the electric lights, and
as it swept on it changed the entire as
pect of the planet-in front of it all
life, behind it all death.
Eastward our view extended across
the Syrtis Major toward the land of
Llbya and the region of Isidis. On that
side also the dikes were giving way I'M
der the tremendous pressure, and the
floods were rushing toward the sunrise,
which had just begun to streak the
eastern sky.
The continents that were being over.
whelmed on the western side of the
Syrtis were Meroe, Aeria, Arabia,
Edom and Eden.
The water beneath us continually
deepened The current from the melting
SHOWS around the southern pole was at
Its strongest, and one could hardly have
believed that any obstruction put in its
path would have been able to arrest it
and turn it into these two all swallow
ing deluges, sweeping east and west.
But, as we now perceived, the level of
the land over large part of its surface
was hundreds of feet below the ocean
so that the latter, when once the bar
riers were broken, rushed into depres-
slons that yawned to receive it.
The point where we had dealt our
blow was far removed from the great
capital of Mars, around the Lake of the
Sun, and we knew that we should have
to wait for the floods to reach that point
before the desired effect could be mo-
duced. By the nearest way the water
had at least 8, 900 miles to travel. We
estimated that its speed where we hung
above 1t was as much as 100 miles an
hour. Even if that speed were main
tanned, more than two days and nights
would be required for the floods to reach
the Lake of the Sun
But as the water rushed on it would
fContinued on EIGHTH paga