Los Angeles herald., 1908-03-22

"A.
envelops the entire globe, growing thinner and
lighter only at the poles. The rays OF the sun,
disk are dotted with millions of dark spots and
cannot penetrate the thick, wintry fog; over the
earth pale red twilight spreads
Nature round about is dead and barren. Inc
dome of the horizon is not visible; no friendly
star sheds its light upon this immense, rigid
desert; the soft rays of the moon have ceased 10
shine over the giant snow fields and icy prairies;
they are no longer reflected upon the glistening
surface of the narrow, far-expandng frozen seas,
the remnants of the oceans OF the Woriu, not YET
absorbed by the sunlight.
And should this impenetrabe fog break away
and the continuous fall of the fine, misty snow
come to an end we would still seek vainly for the
trusty comrade of the EARTH the MOON Thousands
of wears ago she was destroyed partly through a
constantly increasing cold and partly scared by
the burning sun-rays, which no atmosphere couid
soften and her fragments were hurled into the
immense space of the earth. 1t was thought that
the end of the world had come then, and tnls
terrible catastrophe caused dreadful eartnquaKes'
floods and storms, the description OF whlch came
down from generation to generation IN myths anu
legends until at last the influence OF the moon
upon the earth, the tides and eclipses OF the sun
was not even known by name to the human race
of that period.
As far as the eve can reach this desert lies in
the throes of an almost complete rigidity. The
fire in the interior of the earth Is burned OUT
the rays of the sun have lost their power TO warm
it, Everything Is cold and dead But there is
still some organic life under the white shroud;
there are still human beings living In this lnnos
pitable wilderness, remnants OF dwarIeo anu
stunned tribe who for thousands of years have
been accustomed to wiring day by day hazardous
existence from the inimical elements; a tribe VINO
know nothing of a life during medieval days in
warmer cimes, where voluptuous and magnih-
cent flora grew under deep blue sky and eartn
and air and ocean were peopled with manifold
animal creatures. For thousands OF years the
inhabitants of the globe have known no other zone
than the northern, other nature but one OF
snow and ice and cold. There were many old
scientific records which spoke of milder climate,
and sagacious hypothesis were laid down IN tnese @
volumes of an anteduvian fauna and hora; put
later on nobody believed them, or imagined II
nossible that they could ever have existed.
During an immeasurable period OF time tne
earth had gradually cooled off, and this coolingo1
emanated from the poles, moving slowly and grad
ually-for thousands of years were mere SECONDS nus
on the dial of the clock of the world-toward the
Equator What a sensation it aroused, when IN
ancient times, for instance In the lStn century,
fossil remnants of vegetation and animal world
were found way up in the North underneath attn tie ne
ice and snow such as could have existed only III
the tronic zone not thinking then that the time
would come when the Equator would reveal unoer
its cover of ice and the fossils OF It's own
+ropical nature.