The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1904-08-10
Man ln the Moon
Observation-Disclosures

fifty odd years, I undertook to skate
twenty miles or SO along the frozen
Lea. When I returned home I was
tired, SO tired that scarcely was I
seated in my armchair when found
myself nodding, and undoubtedly I
should have fallen asleep had not an
exceedingly strange circumstance
happened.
TO be brief, then, I was lifted
from my chair in my home in north
London, whirled through space for
a couple Of hours and then deposit
ed, gently, but firmly, on the moon.
Scarcely had I recovered my
breath when an aged man of ven.
cradle aspect, whom l at once recog.
nized as the man in the moon, ap-
preached me and inquired my bust
ness. l explained that 1 was an
involuntary trespasser on his hos
and then, thinking as
was there l might as well learn
something about the history of our
satellite and its inhab;tints-sup-
posing there were any proceeded
as respectfully as. might DO to ques-
ton the old fellow. 4
''Ies, you are rightw he exclaim-
ed in answer to my query as he
placed the load of fagots he was car
rying on projecting mass of gran
ite and rested his back against the
cone of an extinct volcano. 81 have
seen lot Of changes in my time.
How old am I? Well, I don't know
exactly, but it is some millions of
years ago since my first birthday.
why, bless my heart, when I
was a lad this old, dried up moon
was as bright and fresh as your
earth is now. ~
'.Seas sparkled in the sunlight,
brooks cleaned and dashed through
the valleys, and forests clothed with
yerdure the mountains now dead
and silent. Aye, these were glorious
times. The birds sang in the woods
from early dawn to nightfall, the
fishes leaped and FLASHED and leaped
and plashed again in every eddy and
pool of our prehistoric rivers. Great
mammals, some uncouth and some
beautiful, but mostly the latter,
Toamed' at viii amid the glades of
our mighty forests. Then, after a
million years or SO, man came."
'Man?" I repeated incredulously.
Yes, man." he reiterated rather
testify. 'sMan, of course. Do you
think your earth alone has been the
home of man? I tell you he lived
and flourished here while the earth
was yet formless and void, a vast
white hot mass of semifuid granite.
AT first he was weak for lack of
knowledge, and fought-often un-
successfully-with the wild beasts
of the forests for food and drink
and raiment. Then as he grew older
he grew wiser and carved for him
self weapons Of flint and wood, just
as the earth man did million or
two years afterward. Our lunar
men were very clever, too, very
clever; not SO large or SO strong
as terrestrial man, perhaps, but
quicker to learn. Why, it did not
take us more than 100000 years to
perfect our civilization"
"And what happened then p was
my next query. f1ls
"Ah, there you have asked q
question hard to answer" quoth
the old man sealy. "Anll Al I know
is that one year there came q blight
over all things. It was not exactly
8 plague. It was rather want Of
vitality in the atmosphere that re-
acted with terrible effect on all ami
mate nature. Man, being the most
highly organized Of, all things liv-
ing, was the first to feel its baneful
effects, and he dwindled and pined
and finally pe1ished, and the places
that had been won't to know him
knew him no more forever.
'Then as the sunny atmosphere
grew more and more attenuated the
mammals first and afterward every
form of animal life grew cold and
dead. The lowest forms Of plant
life fingered for q few thousand
years longer, until the last. drop Of
water had eyaporafed into space, n i:
fact, and then they, TOD, vanished,
and the moon was left as you see it
todaV-a dead world, without heat,
atm cY,b ar, ~. ~, ~ 3, 1S
"a sad fate, surely, but you must
have become resigned" }" / said sooth-s
ingly, for the old man was sighing
heavily and gazing 6xedly into
space, as though he saw again the
lost visions Of lone livers he had
been describing. tsS n.
No am not resigned. And
he shook his head slowly from side
to side. Both myself and my sis-.
ter look forward TO better times to
come Y 5s