Ragnarok : the Age of Fire and Gravel

OLDT

tails of comets mingled with our atm

longation of a comet's tail, and that hundreds of human beings lost their lives, somewhat

an that of the old time, still it may throw some light upon the great

ed a comet in the constellation Aries, which, at that time, was seen as a small round speck of filmy cloud. Its course was watched during the following month by M. Gamb

d its path, and announced that on i

s," Vol. i

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iles of its track, and but about one month befor

ing close to t

urn trip, through the retarding influence of Jupiter and S

time in 1832, and the ear

a head and tail of its own; each had set up a separate government for itself; and they were whirling through space, side by side, like a couple of r

#

TWO, (From Guillemin's "

f, the Midgard-Serpent, and

lost. It was dissipated. Its material was banging around the earth in fragment

ing stars or meteors, of which there had been no previous forecast, and Professor Klinkerflues, of Berlin, having carefully noted the common radiant point in space from which this star-shower was discharged into the earth's atmosphere, with the intuition of ready genius jumped at once to the startling inference that here at last were traces of the missing luminary. There were eighty of the meteors that furnished a good position for the radiant point of the discharge, and that position, strange to say, was very much the same as the position in space which Biela's comet should ha

.

m to Mr. Pogson, of Madras,

earth on the 27th of November. Se

ous passage of astronomical romance may be appropriately told in the words in which Mr. Pogson replied to Herr

n successive minutes could be obtained, in strong morning twilight, with an anonymous star; but direct motion of 2.5 seconds decided that I had got the comet all right. I noted it--circular, bright, with, a decided nucleus, but NO TAIL, and about forty-five seconds in diameter. Next morning I got seven good comparison

this particular place, and that he was ultimately quite confident of the identity of the comet observed by Mr. Pogson with one of the two heads of Biela. It was subsequently settled that Mr. Pogson had, most probably,

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ithin the lapse of some millions of years. As a matter of fact the collision did take place on November 27, 1872, and the result, so far as the earth was concerned, was a magnificent display of a?rial fireworks! But a more telling piece of ready-witted sagacity than this prompt employment of the telegraph for the apprehension of the nimble delinquen

scape with a mere s

d a tail made up of stones, possibly gradually diminishing in size as they recede from the nucleus, until the after-part of it is comp

or 1872. The probabilities are that the demoralization took place before 1852, as otherwise the comets would have been seen, tails and all, in that an

.

bankrupt comets? They were probably scattered around in space, disjecta membra, floating hither and thither, in one place a stream of stones, in another a volume of gas; while the t

al order occur on the face

ch attracted the attention of the whole world, which caused the death of hundreds of human beings, and the destruct

ing at the time in Minnesota, hundreds of miles from the scene of the disasters, and he can never forget the condition of things. There was a parched, combustible, inflammable, furnace-like feeling in the air, that was really alarming.

in the evening, at apparently the sam

.

d Illinois, fires of the most peculiar and devastating ki

containing Peshtigo, Manistee, Holland, and numerous villages on the shores of Green Bay, was swept bare by an absolute whirlwind of flame. There were seven hundred and fif

rdinary fir

th a terrible glare. The sky, which had been so dark a moment before, burst into clouds of flame. A spectator of the terrible scene says the fire did not come upon them gradually from burning trees and other objects to the windward, but the first notice they had of it was a whirlwind of flame in great clouds from above the tops of the trees, which fell upon and entirely enveloped ever

nflagration," Sheahan & Upton, C

.

enomenon seems to explain the fact that so many were killed in compact masses. They seemed to have huddled together, in what were evidently r

specta

pipe; but even that would not account for some of the phenomena. For instance, we have in our possession a copper cent taken from the pocket of a dead man in the Peshtigo Sugar Bush, which will illustrate our point. This cent has been partially fused, but still retains its round form, and the

were to fire, nothing like this had ever been known. They could give no other interpretation to this ominous roar, this bur

It seemed as if 'the fiery fiends of hell had been loosened,' says one. 'It came in great s

t Conflagration," Sheahan &

d., p.

.

in streams.' The fire leaped over roofs and trees, and ignited whole streets at once. No one

, doing business

that was aground in about two feet of water, and by going under water now and then, and holding my head close to the water behind the log, I managed to breathe. There were

arth" crouching in the same way in the water to s

ome mill-property of which he had charge. He knew the fire was coming, and dug himself a shallow w

qu

he dragged out a four-inch plank, sawed it in two, and saw that the parts tightly covered the mouth of the little well. 'I kalkerate

t Conflagration," Sheahan &

.

. As he rested a moment from giving the house another wetting down, a horse dashed into the opening at full speed and made for the house. Weaver could see him tremble and shake with exciteme

tions, descriptions of the terrified animals flying with the me

ees. It did not run along the ground, or leap from tree to tree, but it came on like a tornado, a sheet of flame reaching from the earth to the tops of the trees. As it struck the clearing he jumped into his well, and closed over the planks. He could no longer see, but he could hear. He s

n with his head and hands turned them over and put out the fire by dashing up water with his hands. Although it was a cold night, and the water ha

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s on fire in spots, house and mill were gone, leaves, brush, and logs were swept clean away

find safety in the water, leaped into this well. "The relentless fury of the flames drove them pell-mell into the pit, to struggle with each other and die--some by drowning, and others by fire and suff

ble when we remember that the ancestors of our race must have endured sim

roit, who was at Union

e of a crescent around the settlement. It is almost impossible to conceive the frightful rapi

coming toward them f

ses thundering toward us, bellowing

t Conflagration," Sheahan &

d., p.

.

and bridled, and, as we first thought, had a bag lashed to his back. As he came up we were startled at the sight of a young lad lying fallen over the animal's neck, the bridle wound around his hands, and the mane being clinched by the fingers. Little effort was needed to stop the jaded horse, and at once release the helpless boy. He was taken into the

which refer to the multitudes of the burned, maimed, and wounded lying in the caverns

he same condition of things, but not so terrible in the loss of human life. Fully fifteen thousand people were rendered homeless by the fires; and their food, clot

t Conflagration," Sheahan &

.

million dollars; not only villages and ci

ry results of this atmospheric disturbance. It is needless

eeding, helpless

ragments of her

stood but yes

e to refer to on

the conflagration by kicking over a lantern was proved to be false. It wa

marshal t

nes that we were go

aking of O'L

oot farther; but the next thing I knew they came and told me t

d the churc

w the fire was in Bat

Chicago "buildings far beyond the line of fire, and in

t Conflagration," Sheahan &

.

ay the Wisconsin, Michigan, and Chicago fires broke out, the States of Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, and Illinois were severely devastated by prairie-fires;

Science and Industry"

1872, great areas of forest and prairie-land, both in t

ted the hardest building-stone, which had previously been considered fire-proof. Iron, glass, granite, were fused and run together in

from Sheahan &

disappear for ever from sight in five minutes by the watch. . . . The fire also doubled on its track at the great Union Depot and burned half a mile southward in the very teeth of the gale

the Chicago Fi

.

B. Ogden wrot

the fiercest tornado of win

f acres left bare there is not to be found a piece of wood of any description, and, unlike most fires, it left noth

marble burn

factories was stacked some hundreds of tons of pig-iron. This iron was two hundred feet from any building. To the south of it was the river, one hundred and fifty feet wide. No large b

red and fifty million dollars; and the number of people rendered houseless

rations spread over wide areas; when human beings were consumed by the million; when their works were obliter

of the Chicag

id.,

d., p.

.

we have seen them in Job clambering down r

of crops, and in famines? Who shall say how far great revolutions and wars and other perturbations of humanity have been due to similar modifications? There is a world of philosoph

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