The Superior times. [volume] (Superior, Wis.) 1870-1912, 1910-05-21

Of water, so feet high, roaring hungrily, upon
the long coasts OF Asia, and swept inland across
the plains of China. For space the star, hot
ter now and larger and brighter than the sun
In it's strength showed with pitiess brilliance
the wide and populous country; towns and VII
lagos with their pagodas and trees, roads, Wde
cultivated fields millions of sleepless people
staring in helpless terror at the incandescent
sky; and then, low and growing, came the MUIR
muir of the flood And thus 1t was with millions
of men that night-a breath fierce and scant,
and the food like wall swift and white behind
And then death.
China was lit glowing white but over Japan
and Java and all the islands Of eastern Asia the
great star was a ball of dull red fire because OF
the steam and smoke and ashes the volcanoes
were spouting forth to salute It's coming Above
were the lava, hot gases and ash, and below
the seethng floods and the whole earth swayed
and rumbled with the earthquake shocks
Larger grew the star, and larger, hotter and
brighter with terrible swiftness now. The
tropical ocean had lost it's phosphorescence and
the whrling steam rose in ghostly wreaths from
the black waves that plunged necessarily,
speckled with storm tossed ships
And then came a wonder 1t seemed to
those who in Europe watched for the rising
of the star that the world must have ceased
it's rotation. In thousand open spaces of down
and upland the people who had fed thither from
the floods and the falling houses and sliding
slopes of hill watched for that rising in vain.
Hour followed hour through terrible suspense
and the star rose not. Once again men set their
eyes upon the old consultations they had count
ed lost to them forever, In England it was hot
and clear overhead, though the ground quivered
perpetually; but in the tropics Sirius and Ca
pella and Aldebaran showed through a veil of
steam.
Over Asia it was the star had begun to fall
behind the movement of the sky and then sud
denly, as it hung India, its light had been
yelled All the plain of India from the mouth
of the Indus to the mouths of the Gauges was
a shallow waste of shining water that night, out
of which rose temples and palaces mounds and
hills, black with people. Every minaret was
clustering mass Of people, who fell one by
one into the turbd waters as heat and terror
overcame them. The whole land seemed
awaiting and suddenly there swept a shadow
across that furnace of despair and a breath of
cold wind and gathering of clouds out of the
cooling air. Men looking up, near blinded, at
the star, saw that black disk was creeping
across the light 1t was the moon coming be-
tween the star and the earth And even as
men cried to God at this respite out of the
east with strange, inexplicabe swiftness
sprang the sun. And then star sun and moon
rushed together across the heavens.
So it was that presently. to the European
watchers, star and sun rose close upon each
other, drove headong for a space and then
slower, and at last came to rest star and sun
merged into one glare of flame at the zenith
or the sky. The moon no longer eclipsed the
star, but was lost to sight In the brilliance of
the sky And though those who were still alive
regarded it for the most part with that dull stu.
p'dity that hunger. fatigue heat and despair
engender. there were still men who could per
celVe the meaning OF these signs Star and
earth had been at their nearest, had swung
about one another and the star had passed
Already 1t was receding, swfter and swifter, in
the last stage OF its headlong journey downward
into the sun.
And then the clouds gathered blotting out
'he vision OF the sky; the thunder and lightning
woYe garment around the world: all over the
earth was such downpour of rain as men had
never seen before and where the volcanoes
hared red against the cloud canopy there de-
seconded torrents Of mud. Everywhere the wa
ters we're pouring of the land leaving mud
slIted ruins and the earth Uttered like storm
worn beach with all that had foated and tba
ueaa bodies OF the men and brutes, its children
But the star had passed and men hunger
or'en and gathering courage only slowly, might
creep back to their ruined cities buried GRO,
aries and sodden fields Such few sbfns nc va
escaped the storms OF that time came stunned
and shattered and sounding their wav GOV.
uOusiy through the new marks and shoals NJ
once familiar ports, And as the storms snbsi.
ded men perceived that everywhere tho dors
were hotter than OF yore and the sun larger and
the moon, shrunk TO a third Of its former si1o
LOOK tonrscore days between its new and nav
The Marian astronomers-tor there are as.
FohoneFS on Mars although they are different
beings from men-were naturally nrnf,rrar 4;
teTested by these things They saw tber, f-a+,
'heiT own standpoint, OF course. "Considerine
the mass and temperature Of the missile tba9
was hung through our solar system into the
sun enc wrote, ii Is astonishing what 1ittIo
damage the earth which ii missed 50 naTr,r,.
mas sustained. All the familiar continental
markings and the masses Of the seas rou,atr
,"'"2' and indeed the only difference seems to
pe sa7inkage Of the white discoloratfon Is,r
posed 10 be frozen waterl round either ro,a p
"1iSa emily shows how small the yastest Of h,
man galas'7ophes may seem at distance -
Sew million miles y
Copyright 1919, hy Y G Chapman,
EarT- nj ~ U,gh.a4a, 49,