THE SUBMERGENCE OF THE OLD WORLD
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.
"Will this gentleman identify himself?" asked the president. "Will he
please explain his words?"
"That I will," said a tall man with long whiskers, rising at the rear end
of the room. "I am pretty well known. I----"
"It's Jameson, the astrologer," cried a voice. "What's _he_ doing here?"
"Yes," said the whiskered man, "it's Jameson, the astrologer, and he has
come here to let you know that Cosmo Versál was born under the sign Cancer,
the first of the watery triplicity, and that Berosus, the Chaldean,
declared----"
An uproar immediately ensued; half the members were on their feet at once;
there was a scuffle in the back part of the room, and Jameson, the
astrologer, was hustled out, shouting at the top of his voice:
"Berosus, the Chaldean, predicted that the world would be drowned when
all the planets should assemble in the sign Cancer--_and where are they
now?_ Blind and stupid dolts that you are--_where are they now?"_
It was some time before order could be restored, and a number of members
disappeared, having followed Jameson, the astrologer, possibly through
sympathy, or possibly with a desire to learn more about the prediction of
Berosus, the father of astrology.
When those who remained, and who constituted the great majority of the
membership, had quieted down, the president remarked that the interruption
which they had just experienced was quite in line with all the other
proceedings of the disturbers of public tranquillity who, under the lead
of a crazy American charlatan, were trying to deceive the ignorant
multitude. But they would find themselves seriously in error if they
imagined that their absurd ideas were going to be "taken over" in England.
"I dare say," he concluded, "that there is some _scheme_ behind it all."
"Another American 'trust'!" cried a voice.
The proceedings were finally brought to an end, but not before a modest
member had risen in his place and timidly remarked that there was one
question that he would like to put to the chair--one thing that did not
seem to have been made quite clear--"Where _were_ the planets now?"
A volley of hoots, mingled with a few "hears!" constituted the only
reply.
Scenes not altogether unlike this occurred in the other great learned
societies--astronomical, meteorological, and geological. The official
representatives of science were virtually unanimous in condemnation of
Cosmo Versál, and in persistent assertion that nothing that had occurred
was inexplicable by known laws. But in no instance did they make it clear
to anybody precisely what were the laws that they invoked, or how it
happened that Cosmo Versál had been able to predict so many strange things
which everybody knew really had come to pass, such as the sudden storms and
the great darkness.
We are still, it must not be forgotten, dealing with a time anterior to the
rising of the sea.
The Paris Academy of Sciences voted that the subject was unworthy of
serious investigation, and similar action was taken at Berlin, St.
Petersburg, Vienna, and elsewhere.
But among the people at large universal alarm prevailed, and nothing was
so eagerly read as the dispatches from New York, detailing the proceedings
of Cosmo Versál, and describing the progress of his great levium ark. In
England many procured copies of Cosmo's circulars, in which the proper
methods to be pursued in the construction of arks were carefully set forth.
Some set to work to build such vessels; but, following British methods of
construction, they doubled the weight of everything, with the result that,
if Cosmo had seen what they were about he would have told them that such
arks would go to the bottom faster than to the top.
In Germany the balloon idea took full possession of the public mind.
Germany had long before developed the greatest fleet of dirigible balloons
in existence, preferring them to every other type of flying apparatus. It
was reported that the Kaiser was of the opinion that if worst came to worst
the best manner of meeting the emergency would be by the multiplication of
dirigibles and the increase of their capacity.
The result was that a considerable number of wealthy Germans began the
construction of such vessels. But when interviewed they denied that they
were preparing for a flood. They said that they simply wished to enlarge
and increase the number of their pleasure craft, after the example of the
Kaiser. All this was in contemptuous defiance of the warning which Cosmo
Versál had been careful to insert in his circulars, that "balloons and
aeros of all kinds will be of no use whatever; the only safety will be
found in arks, and they must be provisioned for at least five years."
The most remarkable thing of all happened in France. It might naturally
have been expected that a Frenchman who thought it worth his while to take
any precautions against the extinction of the human race would, when it
became a question of a flood, have turned to the aero, for from the
commencement of aerial navigation French engineers had maintained an
unquestionable superiority in the construction and perfection of that kind
of machine.
Their aeros could usually fly longer and carry more dead weight than those
of any other nation. In the transoceanic aero races which occasionally took
place the French furnished the most daring and the most frequently
successful competitors.
But the French mind is masterly in appreciation of details, and Cosmo
Versál's reasons for condemning the aero and the balloon as means of
escaping the flood were promptly divined. In the first place it was seen
that no kind of airship could be successfully provisioned for a flight of
indefinite length, and in the second place the probable strength of the
winds, or the crushing weight of the descending water, in case, as Cosmo
predicted, a nebula should condense upon the earth, would either sweep an
aero or a balloon to swift destruction, or carry it down into the waves
like a water-soaked butterfly.
Accordingly, when a few Frenchmen began seriously to consider the
question of providing a way of escape from the flood--always supposing, for
the sake of argument, that there would be a flood--they got together, under
the leadership of an engineer officer named Yves de Beauxchamps, and
discussed the matter in all its aspects. They were not long in arriving at
the conclusion that the best and most logical thing that could possibly be
done would be to construct a _submarine_.
In fact, this was almost an inevitable conclusion for them, because before
the abandonment of submarines in war on account of their _too_ great
powers of destruction--a circumstance which had also led to the prohibition
of the use of explosive bombs in the aerial navies--the French had held
the lead in the construction and management of submersible vessels, even
more decisively than in the case of aeros.
"A large submarine," said De Beauxchamps, "into whose construction a
certain amount of levium entered, would possess manifest advantages over
Versál's Ark. It could be provisioned to any extent desired, it would
escape the discomforts of the waves, winds, and flooding rain, and it
could easily rise to the surface whenever that might be desirable for
change of air. It would have all the amphibious advantages of a whale."
The others were decidedly of De Beauxchamps's opinion, and it was
enthusiastically resolved that a vessel of this kind should be begun at
once.
"If we don't need it for a flood," said De Beauxchamps, "we can employ it
for a pleasure vessel to visit the wonders of the deep. We will then make
a reality of that marvelous dream of our countryman of old, that prince of
dreamers, Jules Verne."
"Let's name it for him!" cried one.
"Admirable! Charming!" they all exclaimed. "_Vive le 'Jules Verne'!_"
Within two days, but without the knowledge of the public, the keel of the
submersible _Jules Verne_ was laid. But we shall hear of that remarkable
craft again.
While animated, and in some cases violent, discussions were taking place
in the learned circles of Europe, and a few were making ready in such
manner as they deemed most effective for possible contingencies, waves of
panic swept over the remainder of the Old World. There were yet hundreds
of millions in Africa and Asia to whom the advantages of scientific
instruction had not extended, but who, while still more or less under the
dominion of ignorance and superstition, were in touch with the _news_ of
the whole planet.
The rumor that a wise man in America had discovered that the world was
to be drowned was not long in reaching the most remote recesses of the
African forests and of the boundless steppes of the greater continent,
and, however it might be ridiculed or received with skeptical smiles in
the strongholds of civilization, it met with ready belief in less
enlightened minds.
Then, the three "signs"--the first great heat, the onslaught of storm and
lightning, and the _Noche Triste_, the great darkness--had been world-wide
in their effects, and each had heightened the terror caused by its
predecessor. Moreover, in the less enlightened parts of the world the
reassurances of the astronomers and others did not penetrate at all, or,
if they did, had no effect, for not only does bad news run while good news
walks, but it talks faster.
It will be recalled that one of the most disquieting incidents in America,
immediately preceding the catastrophal rising of the oceans, was the
melting of the Arctic snows and ice-fields, with consequent inundations
in the north. This stage in the progress of the coming disaster was
accentuated in Europe by the existence of the vast glaciers of the Alps.
The Rocky Mountains, in their middle course, had relatively little snow and
almost no true glaciers, and consequently there were no scenes of this kind
in the United States comparable with those that occurred in the heart of
Europe.
After the alarm caused by the great darkness in September had died out, and
the long spell of continuous clear skies began, the summer resorts of
Switzerland were crowded as they had seldom been. People were driven there
by the heat, for one thing; and then, owing to the early melting of the
winter's deposit of snow, the Alps presented themselves in a new aspect.
Mountain-climbers found it easy to make ascents upon peaks which had always
hitherto presented great difficulties on account of the vast snow-fields,
seamed with dangerous crevasses, which hung upon their flanks. These were
now so far removed that it was practicable for amateur climbers to go where
always before only trained Alpinists, accompanied by the most experienced
guides, dared to venture.
But as the autumn days ran on and new snows fell, the deep-seated glaciers
began to dissolve, and masses of ice that had lain for untold centuries in
the mighty laps of the mountains, projecting frozen noses into the valleys,
came tumbling down, partly in the form of torrents of water and partly in
roaring avalanches.
The great Aletsch glacier was turned into a river that swept down into the
valley of the Rhône, carrying everything before it. The glaciers at the
head of the Rhône added their contribution. The whole of the Bernese
Oberland seemed to have suddenly been dissolved like a huge mass of sugar
candy, and on the north the valley of Interlaken was inundated, while the
lakes of Thun and Brientz were lost in an inland sea which rapidly spread
over all the lower lands between the Alps and the Swiss Jura.
Farther east the Rhine, swollen by the continual descent of the glacier
water, burst its banks, and broadened out until Strasburg lay under water
with the finger of its ancient cathedral helplessly pointing skyward out
of the midst of the flood. All the ancient cities of the great valley from
Basle to Mayence saw their streets inundated and the foundations of their
most precious architectural monuments undermined by the searching water.
The swollen river reared back at the narrow pass through the Taunus range,
and formed a huge eddy that swirled over the old city of Bingen. Then it
tore down between the castle-crowned heights, sweeping away the villages
on the river banks from Bingen to Coblentz, lashing the projecting rocks
of the Lorelei, and carrying off houses, churches, and old abbeys in a
rush of ruin.
It widened out as it approached Bonn and Cologne, but the water was still
deep enough to inundate those cities, and finally it spread over the plain
of Holland, finding a score of new mouths through which to pour into the
German Ocean, while the reclaimed area of the Zuyder Zee once more joined
the ocean, and Amsterdam and the other cities of the Netherlands were
buried, in many cases to the tops of the house doors.
West and south the situation was the same. The Mer de Glace at Chamonix,
and all the other glaciers of the Mont Blanc range, disappeared, sending
floods down to Geneva and over the Dauphiny and down into the plains of
Piedmont and Lombardy. The ruin was tremendous and the loss of life
incalculable. Geneva, Turin, Milan, and a hundred other cities, were
swept by torrents.
The rapidity of this melting of the vast snow-beds and glaciers of the
Alps was inconceivable, and the effect of the sudden denudation upon the
mountains themselves was ghastly. Their seamed and cavernous sides stood
forth, gaunt and naked, a revelation of Nature in her most fearful aspects
such as men had never looked upon. Mont Blanc, without its blanket of snow
and ice, towered like the blackened ruin of a fallen world, a sight that
made the beholders shudder.
But this flood ended as suddenly as it had begun. When the age-long
accumulations of snow had all melted the torrents ceased to pour down from
the mountains, and immediately the courageous and industrious inhabitants
of the Netherlands began to repair their broken dikes, while in Northern
Italy and the plains of Southeastern France every effort was made to
repair the terrible losses.
Of course similar scenes had been enacted, and on even a more fearful
scale, in the plains of India, flooded by the melting of the enormous icy
burden that covered the Himalayas, the "Abode of Snow." And all over the
world, wherever icy mountains reared themselves above inhabited lands,
the same story of destruction and death was told.
Then, after an interval, came the yet more awful invasion of the sea.
But few details can be given from lack of records. The Thames roared
backward on its course, and London and all central England were inundated.
A great bore of sea-water swept along the shores of the English Channel,
and bursting through the Skager Rack, covered the lower end of Sweden, and
rushed up the Gulf of Finland, burying St. Petersburg, and turning all
Western Russia, and the plains of Pomerania into a sea. The Netherlands
disappeared. The Atlantic poured through the narrow pass of the Strait of
Gibraltar, leaving only the Lion Rock visible above the waves.
At length the ocean found its way into the Desert of Sahara, large
areas of which had been reclaimed, and were inhabited by a considerable
population of prosperous farmers. Nowhere did the sudden coming of the
flood cause greater consternation than here--strange as that statement
may seem. The people had an undefined idea that they were protected by a
sort of barrier from any possible inundation.
It had taken so many years and such endless labor to introduce into the
Sahara sufficient water to transform its potentially rich soil into arable
land that the thought of any sudden superabundance of that element was far
from the minds of the industrious agriculturalists. They had heard of the
inundations caused by the melting of the mountain snows elsewhere, but
there were no snow-clad mountains near them to be feared.
Accordingly, when a great wave of water came rushing upon them, surmounted,
where it swept over yet unredeemed areas of the desert, by immense clouds
of whirling dust, that darkened the air and recalled the old days of the
simoom, they were taken completely by surprise. But as the water rose
higher they tried valiantly to escape. They were progressive people, and
many of them had aeros. Besides, two or three lines of aero expresses
crossed their country. All who could do so immediately embarked in
airships, some fleeing toward Europe, and others hovering about, gazing
in despair at the spreading waters beneath them.
As the invasion of the sea grew more and more serious, this flight by
airship became a common spectacle over all the lower-lying parts of Europe,
and in the British Isles. But, in the midst of it, the heavens opened their
flood-gates, as they had done in the New World, and then the aeros, flooded
with rain, and hurled about by contending blasts of wind, drooped,
fluttered, and fell by hundreds into the fast mounting waves. The nebula
was upon them!
In the meantime those who had provided arks of one kind or another, tried
desperately to get them safely afloat. All the vessels that succeeded in
leaving their wharves were packed with fugitives. Boats of every sort were
pressed into use, and the few that survived were soon floating over the
sites of the drowned homes of their occupants.
Before it was too late Yves de Beauxchamps and his friends launched their
submarine, and plunged into the bosom of the flood.