Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-05-07
By IGNATTUs DoNNELLY.

uenatius ponnelly, le3l-lso1. was "a
A TSe Great cs9fslrsm. caesars Column
Let US try to conceive the effects Of
the fall Of the material of o comet
upon the earth in the preglacial period
of the eartla's geological history.
We have seen terrible transforms,
hailstorms, snowstornnS, but fancy o
storm Of stones and gravel and clay
dust--not q mere shower, either. but
falling In black masses, darkening the
heavens. vast enough to cover the world
in many places hundreds of feet in
thickness, leveling valleys, tearing away
and grinding down hills, changing the
whole aspect Of the hahitable globe.
without and above II roaTS the earth
uuaking voice OF the terrible ex-
plosions; through the drifts IF debris
glimpses are caught Of the glartng and
burning monster, while through all and
over all is an unearthly heat, under
which rivers, ponds. lakes, springs, dis
appear as If by magic.
Now try to grasp the meaning Of all
this description. Look out at the scene
around you. Here are trees so feet
high. Imagine an instantaneous descent
of granite, sand and gravel sufncient
to smash and crush these trees TO the
ground. to bury their trunks and to
cover the earth from 100 TO 500 feet
higher than the elevation to which
their tops now reachl And this not
alone I'm your garden, or over your
farm, or over your township, or over
your country, or over your state, but
over the whole Continent IN which you
dwell-in short, over the greater part
Of the habttable world
a. taat
even family, such q picture--ltS terror,
its immensely, its horrors, Its de-
structiveness, its surpessal of all earthly
experience and imagination? And this
human ant-hili, the world, how 1nSig-
nif1cant would it be in the grasp OF
such a catastrophe! It's laws, its tenn
pies, its libraries, its religions, its
armies, its migtyh nations, would be as
the veriest stubble-dried grass, leaves,
rubbiSn--crushed, smashed, buried UNI
der this heaven rain OF horrors!
But, 10! Through the darkness the
wretches not beaten down and whelmed
in the debris, but scurrying to noun
tain caves for refuge, have Q new ter
ror; the cry passes from lip 10 lip,
1.-THE world is on firel"
The head of the comet sheds down
fire. It's gases have fallen in great
volumes on the earth; they ignite;
amid the whirling and rushing OF the
debris, caught in cyclones, rises the
glare OF titanic confiagrAhon. The
winds beat the rocks against the rocks:
they pick up sand heaps, peat beds and
boulders and whfri them madly in the
air. The heat increases. The rivers,
the lakes, the ocean itself, evaporate.
wild, crazed, stumbling. blown about
like feathers in tbs hurricanes, srnitten
by night rocks, they perish by the
million; a few only reach the. shelter
of the caverns, and thence, glaring
backward, look out over the ruins Of
a destroyed world.
And not humanity alone has fed to
these hiding places; the terrified
denizens of the forest, the domestic
animals of the fields, with the instinct
which in great tempests has driven
them into houses Of men, follow the
refugees into the caverns.
The first effect of the great heat Is
the vaporization Of the waters of the
earth, but this is arrested long before
1t has completed its work. Still the
heat is intense---how long 1t lasts, who
shall tell? An Arabian legend indicates
years.
The stones having ceased to fall.
the few who have esoaped--and they
are few indeed, for many are shut UP
forever by the clay dust aid gravel in
their hiding places, and on many
others the commissions Of the earth
have shaken down the rocky roofs of
the caves-the few survivors come out,
or dig their way out, to look upon a
changed and blasted world No cloud
is In the sky, no rivers and lakes are
on the earth; only the deep springs
of the caverns are left: the sun, q ball
of fire, glares in the bronze heavens.
But gradually the heat begins to dis
sipate. This is a signal for ire
mendous electrical action. Condensa-
ton commences Never has the air held
such incalculable masses of moisture;
never has heavens artillery, so ratified
and reared since earth began. Con-