Year: 1873

The term in which the final destruc-


ton of our earth is spoken of in Scrip


ture, and the comparatively short exist
ence which seems to be in Providence
destined for it, render it pretty certain


that this globe at least will not meet
with its doom in the aforementioned


manner Laplace's hypothesis. But
as such an event is not only perfect


ly possible one in the economy of ma
ture, but an absolute certainty suppos-
ing that the resisting medium were al
lowed time enough to do it's work, it
may not be out of place to pause for a
moment and consider what is involv-
ed in such catastrophe. Letus think,
! for example, what the case would be
with our own earth, if no speedIer de-
struction were to come upon it from
some yet unanticipated and possibly


miraculous cause. Many centuries no
doubt-it may be many millenniums
would elapse before the most delicate
observations could reveal the working
of the mysterious agent. But at length
some astronomer detects a minute
change in the elements of the earth's
orbit which cannot be accounted for


by any of the ordinary perturbations,
and he is compelled to the belief that
the resisting medium is beginning per-
ceptibly to influence the planet. This
discovery, when publicly announced,
could not fail seriously to impress the
most thoughtless of hearers. The
first step has been taken by the earth
on it's way to doom as fearful as the
imagination can paint and as inevita-


BILE as the unchanging laws of nature
can make it. Still generation after gen.
GRAFTON passes away; the end is, visibly,
no nearer, and but for the figures of the
astronomers the whole thing might be
denounced as an idle fable. But not
the less surely does the unseen Destroy
er fulfil his mission; and in time the
effects of his work become palpable to
every eye. The suns disc is percepti-
bly, enlarged, the intensity of his Ii ght
and heat are increased, the length Of
the year is diminished. At first the
change. of climate is pleasant and
grateful one, except between the trop-
les, and even there it is not so marked
as to be very severely felt. But slow
ly and surely the influence becomes
more potent, and when we look again
some ages later, the face of the inter
tropical regions is scarcely recognisa-


BILE. The rich vale of the Nile, the
fertile plains of the Ganges, the cotton
plantations of the south have disap-
peared; the sandy deserts of Africa
and Asia have extended their bounds,
and stretch without an oasis far on
either side of the equator. The inhab-
itants retreat, some to the north and
some to the south, but the fiery belt
between steadily pursues them, and
mile after mile, league after league,
falls under it's devasting sway. Some
ages more pass away, and when we
look again the vineyards of Spain, the
olive-groves of Italy, the fig gardens of
Turkey, are gone; their cities yet stand
with all their splendid palaces, their
gorgeous temples, but they are like
Tadmor in the wilderness-cities with
out inhabitants. Look again, and
Mont Blanc has lost his diadem of
snow and rears his head, a bare cone
of granite, above the dry and rocky
table-land which was once the Mer de
Glace. Look again, and our own land


has, in it's turn, become burning
desert. And now the whole inhabit-
ants of the globe are collected in two
narrow circles around either POLE
The ice and the snow have disappear
ed, and the frozen plains of Greenland


and Labrador TEEN with tropical veg
citation. But the narrowed limits of
the habitable earth can no longer sup