. Surpassing in severity
the winters of 1888 and 1918, it broke all existing records of the Weather
Bureau. The temperature during the night of November 20, at Brookline,
fell to thirty degrees below zero. During this night the fire was seen to
dwindle gradually in size, and by morning it was entirely extinguished.

No other meteors fell that winter; and, as their significance remained
unexplained, public interest in them soon died out. The observatories at
Harvard, Flagstaff, Cordoba, and the newer one on Table Mountain, near
Cape Town, all reported the appearance of several new stars, flaring into
prominence for a few hours and visible just after sunset and before dawn,
on several nights during November. But these published statements were
casually received and aroused only slight general comment.

Then, in February, 1941, came the publication of Professor Newland's
famous theory of the Mercutian Light--as the fire was afterward known.
Professor Newland was at this time the foremost astronomer in America, and
his extraordinary theory and the predictions he made, coming from so
authoritative a source, amazed and startled the world.

His paper, couched in the language of science, was rewritten to the public
understanding and published in the newspapers of nearly every country. It
was an exhaustive scientific deduction, explaining in theory the origin of
the two meteors that had fallen to earth two months before.

In effect Professor Newland declared that the curious astronomical
phenomena of the previous November--the new "stars" observed, the two
meteors that had fallen with their red and green light-fire--were all
evidence of the existence of intelligent life on the planet Mercury.

I give you here only the more important parts of the paper as it was
rewritten for the public prints:

... I am therefore strongly inclined to accept the theory advanced by
Schiaparelli in 1882, in which he concluded that Mercury rotates on
its axis once in eighty-eight days. Now, since the sidereal revolution
of Mercury, _i.e._, its complete revolution around the sun, occupies
only slightly under eighty-eight days, the planet always presents the
same face to the sun. On that side reigns perpetual day; on the
other--the side presented to the earth as Mercury passes us--perpetual
night.

The existence of an atmospheric envelope on Mercury, to temper the
extremes of heat and cold that would other