We now turn our attention for a time from the New World to the Old. What did the thronging populations of Europe, Africa, and Asia do when the signs of coming disaster chased one on another's heels, when the oceans began to burst their bonds, and when the windows of the firmament were opened?
The picture that can be drawn must necessarily be very fragmentary, because the number who escaped was small and the records that they left are few.
The savants of the older nations were, in general, quite as incredulous and as set in their opposition to Cosmo Versál's extraordinary out-givings as those of America. They decried his science and denounced his predictions as the work of a fool or a madman. The president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Great Britain proved to the satisfaction of most of his colleagues that a nebula could not possibly contain enough water to drown an asteroid, let alone the earth.
"The nebulae," said this learned astronomer, amid the plaudits of his hearers, "are infinitely rarer in composition than the rarest gas left in the receiver of an exhausted air-pump. I would undertake to swallow from a wineglass the entire substance of any nebula that could enter the space between the earth and the sun, if it were condensed into the liquid state."
"It might be intoxicating," called out a facetious member.
"Will the chair permit me to point out," said another with great gravity, "that such a proceeding would be eminently rash, for the nebulous fluid might be highly poisonous." ["Hear! Hear!" and laughter.]
"What do you say of this strange darkness and these storms?" asked an earnest-looking man. (This meeting was held after the terrors of the third sign had occurred.)
"I say," replied the president, "that that is the affair of the Meteorological Society, and has nothing to do with astronomy. I dare say that they can account for it."
"And I dare say they can't," cried a voice.
"Hear! Hear!" "Who are you?" "Put him out!" "I dare say he's right!" "Cosmo
Versál!" Everybody was talking at once.