Consumptive old men, gray-bearded and withered survivors of antebellum days, wastrels of the vicissitudes of fortune came crawling out of garrets to set up small, battered brass telescopes on weather-beaten mahogany tripods. And about these collected knots of people, who eagerly paid small sums to get a nearer view of this astonishing phenomenon which portended no one knew what. In the "black-and-tan" quarters of the city, the impassioned tones of the exhorters, mingled with the groans and wailings of converts and the chant of salvation-hymns, filled the air, for there, at least, the conviction prevailed that the day of Judgment was at hand, and that the sheep were at last to be definitely separated from the goats.
Four days after the meeting of comet and asteroid, which was duly reported by observing astronomers, newsboys were again crying, "Extra!" in the streets of Washington. An evening paper had been made the recipient of the following, the result of calculation on the part of Thornton:
EARTH TO BE ANNIHILATED!
ASTEROID "MEDUSA" WILL TORPEDO OUR PLANET ON
APRIL 22. CATACLYSM NOW ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN
It is announced positively by the officials of the National Observatory that the asteroid Medusa, having been arrested in its orbit by its collision with the comet, is now plunging toward the sun with an increasing hourly acceleration and will undoubtedly hit the earth in less than five months from to-day. Calculations have shown that the point of impact will be in Mexico on the line of latitude passing through Tampico, though it is possible that the body may fall in the Pacific if the time of arrival is a little later than that predicted, or in the gulf of Mexico, if earlier. The opinions held by the leading scientific men of the country as to the immediate effects of the collision differ in the extreme. Some consider that, aside from earthquakes, tidal waves and considerable atmospheric disturbances, the destructive effects will be confined to an area of not more than three or four hundred miles radius. Others believe, however, that the concussion will destroy all life over the greater part of two Americas, and that the "splash" of the asteroid will bury the United States under a layer of fused rock, broken stones, dust, and mud to a depth varying from several miles in Texas to several feet in Maine and Oregon. All agree, however, in the belief that every building in the United States will be razed to the ground by the shock, and that the atmospheric disturbances will be such as to render the loss of life enormous over the entire continent.
The most extreme view is that taken by Professor Katz, of Columbia, who asserts that the impact will reduce our globe to powder. His colleague, Professor Smithers, claims that that part of the earth's surface subjected to the blow will be entirely fused and vaporized, while other scientists believe that the concurrent earthquake shock will travel completely around the earth and destroy all life upon both hemispheres. All agree that, if nothing worse occurs, the vast bulk of the asteroid will penetrate the film of the earth's surface for several hundred miles, the globe's diurnal rotation will be affected, the shape will be changed, and its orbit around the sun will be altered. Ultimate consequences cannot be predicted but THE END OF THE WORLD IS AT HAND!
The civilized world received the astounding news of the pending annihilation of the earth, first, with the amused silence of incredulity, and then with a gasp of horror that swept over the entire surface of the globe. The immediate reaction of the human brain to this inconceivable catastrophe was that of sublime disbelief in its possibility. The finite mind, incapable, as it is, of grasping the infinities, resolutely declined to accept any proposition outside the history of man's experience. Since that moment when the human race in the course of evolution, had appeared upon the face of our planet, the latter's orbit through space had never been attacked or even affected by any other celestial body, and since the earth had spun for countless millions of years in its regular course about the center of the solar system, and summer had inevitably followed winter, and men had been born, made love, fought, and died, no one was ready at first to accept the simple scientific truth that, if a meteorite weighing perhaps only a single ton could fall flaming earthward to bury itself in some farmer's plowed field, there was no reason, in the nature of things, why a meteorite a million times larger should not do the same thing, or why another planet several times larger than the earth should not shatter it to atoms.
Kings, emperors, presidents, sultans, and rajahs, with their courts, Cabinets, and wise men, treated the preliminary announcement of the observatories of Washington, Moscow, and Greenwich much as they had in the past treated the prophecies of clairvoyants and others that the day of Judgment was positively going to occur on certain specified dates. The newspapers carefully refrained from any editorial comment. Somebody, evidently, had made a big mistake which would presently be discovered, and then everybody would breathe easily again. But, unfortunately, the supposed mistake obstinately continued to remain undetected, and further observations merely served to corroborate those already made and to substantiate, not only the probability but the absolute certainty of what Thornton had prophesied.
Then, with a shriek of astonishment and despair the newspapers of all the nations gave themselves over to this, the greatest sensation in the history of the planet, and the combined energies of astronomers throughout the entire globe were concentrated upon determining, so far as possible, the size and weight of the falling asteroid, and the point upon the surface of the earth which would receive its momentous impact.