Rural Retreat times. [volume] (Rural Retreat, Va.) 1892-1918, 1903-06-12
THE END OF
THE WORLD

|sity says the end of the world Is COM
Iing-coming slowly but relentlessly-
land no power can prevent Inc bleaK
Ieternity.
ssThe earth will freeze says the Pro-
Ifessor. The last vestige OF life will be
Iobliterated by cold. But we can afford
to be optimistic. We are not going 10
freeze to death nor our children nor
Jour childrens children for a thousand
generations yet to come. But the earth
Icannot last forever. It's life must go.
There will be no collision with com
lets, no roasting from a great outpour-
ling of the suns heat; no volcanic ex-
plosion, no universal electrocution. l
lam sure that darkness and cold will
bring about the end of the world =
darkness and cold SO impenetrabie and
Intense that the blackness of the sub
Iterranean cavern and the bitterness of
1.-THE absolute zero will be in mild COM
Iparison.
Dark and cold. desolate and unin-
lhabited, { the earth which was once our
world will go revolving through the
void of the universe for countless CEN
lturies. Centuries countless because OF
their vastness, and countless because
the last human being who might have
counted them will have been gone and
forgotten for untold ages.
Like some dread disease. like a
blight spreading over the system, this
end Is approaching. We do not feel it's
approach. But every law of nature or
God, .ells us that it is inevitable.
| 1.-THE same sun has ShOne on this
earth Of ours for 100000 years. 1t
may shine for 100,000,000 more years be
fore its eternal fires are banked. re-
member when l was boy a day was
set for the end of the world 1t was to
be the opening of the millennium, the
cycle of bliss. But the day came and
went the sun rose and set just as other
days named by prophets had come and
gone in the other years and the world
Istilled rolled on it matter of fast way.
| Gradually the sun through the GEN.
lturies will have become COOL OF the
forces we know that of gravity alone
will remain 1t will unimpaired and the
planetary system which we gaze upon
at night will revolve unseen around a
iburned out sun.
| For centuries before the earth lapses
into it's final eternity, the world will
have felt the approaching doom. Grad
ually it's pulses will feel the paralysis
of GOODNESS and darkness stealing over
them. Vain will be the struggle against
1.-THE inevitable.
Artificial light and heat will but
for a comparatively few short centu-
ries be able to replace those of the
great luminary.
The vein of gold, legacies of an ear
Ilier age to civilization will have been
Exhausted. The earth's surface will
have been secured for that which
would produce heat.
Nowhere outside will there be
lother heavenly bodies from which It
might be borrowed. The stars of other
planetary systems will twinkle with
Increased brilliancy is ,ne darkness Of
Jour earth increases and their light will
tell the inhabitants too plainly of the
lgrowing feebleness of our sun.
First will the cold increase at the
poles, where now the ice glacier slip
|uown in the sea to break and melt in
lsouthern waters. Like poisonous fun
lgus the mantle of ice will spread fan
lshaped in all directions. Heralding it
Twill come the cold blasts and have
1.-THE darkness of winter night and
might that will have no ending.
During the centuries that this doom
has been approaching the habits Of
man will change. The records of today
will be hints of an Arcadian past dAer-
ished In the fragmentary inscription Of
vanished literature.
Archaeology and geology will tell us
ia time when mankind lived in tall
buildings, was scantily carried heat pro
luci apparatusducing fuel outside of
| steel bound treasure chests. 10 the peo
pie OF that crisp age such existence
viii prove so rash that compared to it
the hardihoou of the Goths who went
swimming through the ice in The rivers
lof Germany, many will be mild.
Water will be fonnd at but few
spous on the surface of the freezing
earth. Underground springs some of
(which are barely tepid from flowing
lover what was once the molten interi-
Tor OF the earth, will supply the subter
ranean inhabitants.
Finally even these expedients will
cease to support lie. The mantles of
lice will have spread from the poles
land met where now is the torrid zone.
All life Will have ceased to exist. Heat
Twill be unknown and light will have
vanished. The ice coated sphere will
continue spinning on in the cold and
darkness, but the end of the world
will have come.
There are now dark planets In the
lheav rs and the earth will not be the
first one of which astronomers know.
They are attached to other suns, or
what to us are stars. Whether the same
cold temperature surrounds then as
surrounds us we cannot tell.
Mars is the only planet on which
there is the same form of life as exists
on our earth. When life ceases on our
Iearth it will probably cease on Mars at
the same time. 1t has the same atmos-
Iphere as the earth, and conditions on
lit are much the same in every respect.
IOther planets have different atmos-
Ipheres and life must exist on them
in different forms.
Predictions as to the end of the
world are mostly surmises. Just howaif
will come no scientist can state. There
have been many prophecies, religious
land irreligious, but none of them has
lever been fulfilled. There are innumer-
liable ways in which 1t might come,
but to me, after many years of study,
lit seems that the only way is by the
Distinguishing of the sun.
st has been argued that the globe
might explode like gigantic bomb.