en confesses its impotence to retrace
them. Besides how can we tell the story of disasters which were so
complete they often simultaneously overwhelmed under snow-drifts a
hundred yards deep all that witnessed them, to the very last man. All
that we know for certain is what took place at the time towards the end
of the twenty-fifth century in a little district of Arabia Petraea.

Thither had flocked for refuge, in one horde after another, wave after
wave, with host upon host frozen one on the top of another, as they
advanced, the few millions of human creatures who survived of the
hundreds of millions that had disappeared. Arabia Petraea had, therefore,
along with the Sahara, become the most populous country of the globe.
They transported hither by reason of the relative warmth of its climate,
I will not say the seat of Government--for, alas! Terror alone
reigned--but an immense stove which took its place, and whatever
remained of Babylon now covered over by a glacier. A new town was
constructed in a few months on the plans of an entirely new system of
architecture, marvellously adapted for the struggle against the cold. By
the most happy of chances some rich and unworked coal mines were
discovered on the spot. There was enough fuel there, it seems, to
provide warmth for many years to come. And as for food, it was not as
yet too pressing a question. The granaries contained several sacks of
corn, while waiting for the sun to revive and the corn to sprout again.
The sun had certainly revived after the glacial periods; why should it
not do so again? asked the optimists.

It was but the hope of a day. The sun assumed a violet hue. The frozen
corn ceased to be eatable. The cold became so intense that the walls of
the houses as they contracted cracked and admitted blasts of air which
killed the inhabitants on the spot. A physicist affirmed that he saw
crystals of solid nitrogen and oxygen fall from the sky which gave rise
to the fear that the atmosphere would shortly become decomposed. The
seas were already frozen solid. A hundred thousand human creatures
huddling around the huge government stove, which was no longer equal to
restoring their circulation, were turned into icicles in a single night;
and the night following, a second hundred thousand perished likewise. Of
the beautiful human race, so strong and noble, formed by so many
centuries of effort and genius by such an intelligent and extended
selection, there would soo