The Green Forest tribune., 1910-05-20

moons sweeping O==zs=ssz2-1s sSSS$Sss9' 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- hected from it's orbit into an elliptcal path and the burning star, swung by his attraction wide of it's sunward rush, would describe curved path" and perhaps collide with, and certainly pass close to our earth Earth quakes, volcanic outbreaks, cyclones, sea waves, hoods, and 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 visby approaching. And that night, too, the weather changed and the frost that had gripped all central Europe and France and England soft ened towards a thaw.
 But you must not imagine because I have spoken of people praying through the night and people going aboard ships and people flee ing toward mountainous country that the whole world was already In a terror because of the star As matter of fact. use and wont still ruled the world and save 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, scho- 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 priest of this church and that would not open his holy building to further what he considered foolish panic.
 The newspapers insisted on the lesson of the year 1000-for then, too people had antic- pated the end. The star was no star-mere gas-a comet; and it 6 star it could not possibly strike the earth. There was no prece- dent for such a thing. Common sense was sturdy everywhere, scornful, testing, little inclined to persecute 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 the turn things would take The master mthematicians grim warnings were treated by many as so much mere elabo rate sef-advertisement. Common sense at last a little heated by argument sgnified 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 bowling dog here and there the beaest world left the star unheeded.
 And yet, when at last the watchers in the
 
 later it is true. but no larger than it had been the night before, there were still plenty awake to laugh at the master mathematican-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, a little nearer the midnight zenith, and brighter and brighter, until it had turned night into day. Had 1t come straight to the earth in- stead of in curved Dath ity to Jupiter, it must have leapt the interve- ming gulf in day; but as 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 blinding 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, fiekering 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 great grew the heat during the night that the rising of the sun 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, fs- sures were opening and houses and walls crumbling to destruction. The whole side of Cotopaxi slipped out in one vast convulsion and 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 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 a furnace, swift and terrible it came-a wall