This tale, even doubted by the man's companions, certainly received small credit from the outside world. The paper that I read mentioned the story only as an illusion, born of excitement, and went on to point out that while the Mannlertown cataclysm had been repeated the explanation accepted for it had not been disproved. It simply meant that another giant meteor had grazed our globe, and it might well be that the earth was passing through a swarm of them.
I will own, however, that to me the meteor explanation seemed rather weakened by this so exact repetition of the first catastrophe, and I could not see how this recurring catastrophe could be explained so simply.
Howard's Theory
At the first news of the thing, I had sought Dr. Howard to learn his own views of it, but he was not to be found at the university. And by the time I had met him the next day I, along with most of the world, had read the late editions of the newspaper in which he first startled the nations with his astounding explanation of the two cataclysms.
He stated that he had studied closely the scene of the first cataclysm, and had derived therefrom a theory as to its cause which he believed was substantiated by the second occurrence.
"No one who has considered carefully the Mannlertown catastrophe," he stated, "can credit for a moment the idea that it was caused by a meteor. Had a great meteor actually grazed the earth that night, the sky for a thousand miles would have flamed with its passing, even had it been able to pass out of earth's grip after entering it, which is an incredible hypothesis.
"The cataclysm at Mannlertown was not caused by a meteor, but by some vast scoop-like object that was drawn across several miles of the earth's surface with immense speed and in that way gouged out the great trench in the earth. This second cataclysm in Finland was obviously caused in the same way, there being no appearance of a meteor in the sky. The huge scoop of which I speak was actually seen in the second case by the Finnish herder whose story has been little credited. But the very wildness of which is almost a guarantee of its truth, especially coming from such an unimaginative person.
"We must accept, then, the theory that on two different occasions within the last few days a giant scoop of some sort has been lowered from outer space, dragged across the earth's surface for several miles with incredible speed, and then jerked upward again, taking with it the matter it has cut from the earth! Just as we men sail over the surface of our waters and let down trawls to drag along their beds far below, so someone, something or things, exist on the surface of the atmospheric ocean at the bottom of which we live, and is letting down trawls to drag its bottom, the surface of the earth.
"This idea may seem fantastic to many. We human beings do not think of ourselves as living at the bottom of an ocean; but a little reflection will show that to be the case. The atmosphere is an ocean, fifty to sixty miles in depth, covering all the earth. Our knowledge of it indicates that, becoming more and more rarefied, it has a fairly definite surface or limit a few score miles above us, beyond which lies empty space.