The planet itself is stirred to its very centre. On one side, the
earth opens its horrible maw and swallows up uncounted numbers of her
children, or spews out her molten interior in vast lava tides,
overwhelming and destroying all within their reach. At the opposite
side, great floods of gas and rock oil, set free by the operation of
the drill, shoot up in the air and fall back upon the soil in a
luminous spray, as like to liquid gold as aught not filled with the
beloved auriferous metal could be. The waters loosed from their
fastnesses over-reach their accustomed bounds, and great tidal waves
are encountered in unexpected latitudes. Nature is rounding up her
great circle, and making conditions for a new era.