River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1910-05-19

splendid round the
sun every moment now the attraction be-
tween the fiery star and the greatest of the
planets grew stronger. And the result of that
attraction? Inevitably Jupiter would be de-
fected from its orbit into an eliptical path
and the burning star, swung by his attraction
wide of it's sunward rush, would describe a
curved path" and perhaps collide with, and
certainly pass close to our earth Earth
quakes, volcanic outbreaks cyclones, sea
waves, floods, and a steady rise in tempera-
ture to know not what limit"-so prophesied
the master mathematician.
And overhead, to carry out his words, lone
ly and cold and livid, blazed the star of the
coming doom.
To many who stared at it that night until
their eyes ached it seemed that it was visibly
approaching. And that night, too, the weather
changed and the frost that had gripped all
central Europe and France and England soft
ened towards thaw.
But you must not imagine because / have
spoken Of people praying through the night
and people going aboard ships and people fee
ing toward mountainous country that the
whole world was already in terror because
of the star. AS matter of fact, use and wont
still ruled the world and for the talk of
idle moments and the splendor of the night
nine human beings out of ten were still busy
at their common occupations. In all the cities
the shops, save one here and there, opened and
closed at their proper hours, the doctor and
the undertaken piled their trades and workers
gathered in the factories soldiers drilled, schol-
ars studied, lovers sought one another, thieves
lurked and fled, politicians planned their
schemes. The presses of the newspapers
roared through the nights and many a priest
of this church and that would not open his
holy building to further what he considered a
foolish panic
The newspapers insisted on the lesson of
the year 1000-for then, too, people had antici-
pated the end. The star was no star-mere
gas-a comet and were it star it could not
possibly strike the earth. There prece-
dent for such thing. Common sense was
sturdy everywhere scornful, testing, a little
inclined to prosecute the obdurate fearful.
That night at 7:15 by Greenwich time the star
would be at it's nearest to Jupiter Then the
world would see the turn things would take.
The master mthematician's grim warnings
were treated by many as so much mere elabo-
rate acknowledgment Common sense at last,
little heated by argument, signified it's unal-
terable convictions by going to bed. So, too,
barbarism and savagery, already tired of the
novelty, went about their nightly business and
save for a bowling dog here and there the
beaest world left the star unheeded.
And yet, when at last the watchers in the
European states saw the star rise, an hour
later, it is true, but no larger than it had been
the night before, there still plenty awake
to laugh at the master mathematician-to take
the danger as if it had passed.
But hereafter the laughter ceased. The
star grew--it grew with terrible steadiness
hour after hour, little larger each hour,
little nearer the midnight zenith, and brighter
and brighter until it had turned night into
day. Had it come straight to the earth in
stead of in a curved path, had it lost no veloc-
ity to Jupiter, 1t must have leapt the interve-
ming gulf in day; but it was it took five
days altogether to come by our planet. The
next night it had become third the size of
the moon before it set to English eyes, and the
thaw was assured.
It rose over America near the size of the
moon, but binding white to look at, and hot;
and breath of hot wind blew now with it's
rising and gathering strength, and in Virginia
and Brazil and down the st. Lawrence valley
it shone intermittently through driving reek
of thunder clouds, Pickering violet lightning,
and hail unprecedented. In Manitoba were
thaw and devastating floods. And upon all the
mountains of the earth the snow and ice began
to melt that night and all the rivers coming
out of high country flowed thick and turbid,
and soon-in the upper reaches-with swirl
ing trees and the bodies of beasts and men.
They rose steadily, steadily in the ghostly
brilliance, and came trickling over their banks
at last, behind the flying population Of their
valleys.
And along the coast of Argentina and UP
the South Atlantic the tides were higher than
they had ever been in the memory of man and
the storms drove the waters in many cases
scores of miles inland, drowning whole cities.
And so great grew the heat during the night
that the rising of the sun was like the coming
of a shadow. The earthquakes began and
grew until all down America, from the Arctic
circle to Cape Horn hillsides were sliding fis-
sures were opening and houses and walls
crumbling to destruction. The whole side of
Cotopaxi slipped out in one vast CONFUSION
and a tumult of lava poured out so high and
broad and swift and liquid that in one day it
reached the sea.
So the star with the wan moon in its wake,
marched across the Pacific, trailed the thunder
storms like the hem of a robe, and the growing
tidal wave that toiled behind it, frothing and
eager, poured over island and island and swept
them clear of men. Until that wave came at ,
last-in binding light and with the breath OF
furnace, swift and terrible it came-a wall