CHAPTER XII
THE SUBMERGENCE OF THE OLD WORLD
We now turn our attention for a time from the New World to the Old. Whatdid the thronging populations of Europe, Africa, and Asia do when the signsof coming disaster chased one on another's heels, when the oceans began toburst 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 leftare few.
The savants of the older nations were, in general, quite as incredulousand as set in their opposition to Cosmo Versal's extraordinary out-givingsas those of America. They decried his science and denounced hispredictions as the work of a fool or a madman. The president of the RoyalAstronomical Society of Great Britain proved to the satisfaction of mostof his colleagues that a nebula could not possibly contain enough waterto drown an asteroid, let alone the earth.
"The nebulae," said this learned astronomer, amid the plaudits of hishearers, "are infinitely rarer in composition than the rarest gas leftin the receiver of an exhausted air-pump. I would undertake to swallowfrom a wineglass the entire substance of any nebula that could enter thespace between the earth and the sun, if it were condensed into the liquidstate."
"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 fluidmight be highly poisonous." ["Hear! Hear!" and laughter.]
"What do you say of this strange darkness and these storms?" asked anearnest-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 theMeteorological Society, and has nothing to do with astronomy. I dare saythat 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!" "CosmoVersal!" Everybody was talking at once.
"Will this gentleman identify himself?" asked the president. "Will heplease explain his words?"
"That I will," said a tall man with long whiskers, rising at the rear endof 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 hascome here to let you know that Cosmo Versal 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, theastrologer, was hustled out, shouting at the top of his voice:
"Berosus, the Chaldean, predicted that the world would be drowned whenall the planets should assemble in the sign Cancer--_and where are theynow?_ Blind and stupid dolts that you are--_where are they now?"_
It was some time before order could be restored, and a number of membersdisappeared, having followed Jameson, the astrologer, possibly throughsympathy, or possibly with a desire to learn more about the prediction ofBerosus, the father of astrology.
When those who remained, and who constituted the great majority of themembership, had quieted down, the president remarked that the interruptionwhich they had just experienced was quite in line with all the otherproceedings of the disturbers of public tranquillity who, under the leadof a crazy American charlatan, were trying to deceive the ignorantmultitude. But they would find themselves seriously in error if theyimagined 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 modestmember had risen in his place and timidly remarked that there was onequestion that he would like to put to the chair--one thing that did notseem to have been made quite clear--"Where _were_ the planets now?"
A volley of hoots, mingled with a few "hears!" constituted the onlyreply.
Scenes not altogether unlike this occurred in the other great learnedsocieties--astronomical, meteorological, and geological. The officialrepresentatives of science were virtually unanimous in condemnation ofCosmo Versal, and in persistent assertion that nothing that had occurredwas inexplicable by known laws. But in no instance did they make it clearto anybody precisely what were the laws that they invoked, or how ithappened that Cosmo Versal had been able to predict so many strange thingswhich everybody knew really had come to pass, such as the sudden storms andthe great darkness.
We are still, it must not be forgotten, dealing with a time anterior to therising of the sea.
The Paris Academy of Sciences voted that the subject was unworthy ofserious investigation, and similar action was taken at Berlin, St.Petersburg, Vienna, and elsewhere.
But among the people at large universal alarm prevailed, and nothing wasso eagerly read as the dispatches from New York, detailing the proceedingsof Cosmo Versal, and describing the progress of his great levium ark. InEngland many procured copies of Cosmo's circulars, in which the propermethods to be pursued in the construction of arks were carefully set forth.Some set to work to build such vessels; but, following British methods ofconstruction, they doubled the weight of everything, with the result that,if Cosmo had seen what they were about he would have told them that sucharks 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 balloonsin existence, preferring them to every other type of flying apparatus. Itwas reported that the Kaiser was of the opinion that if worst came to worstthe best manner of meeting the emergency would be by the multiplication ofdirigibles and the increase of their capacity.
The result was that a considerable number of wealthy Germans began theconstruction of such vessels. But when interviewed they denied that theywere preparing for a flood. They said that they simply wished to enlargeand increase the number of their pleasure craft, after the example of theKaiser. All this was in contemptuous defiance of the warning which CosmoVersal had been careful to insert in his circulars, that "balloons andaeros of all kinds will be of no use whatever; the only safety will befound in arks, and they must be provisioned for at least five years."
The most remarkable thing of all happened in France. It might naturallyhave been expected that a Frenchman who thought it worth his while to takeany precautions against the extinction of the human race would, when itbecame a question of a flood, have turned to the aero, for from thecommencement of aerial navigation French engineers had maintained anunquestionable superiority in the construction and perfection of that kindof machine.
Their aeros could usually fly longer and carry more dead weight than thoseof any other nation. In the transoceanic aero races which occasionally tookplace the French furnished the most daring and the most frequentlysuccessful competitors.
But the French mind is masterly in appreciation of details, and CosmoVersal's reasons for condemning the aero and the balloon as means ofescaping the flood were promptly divined. In the first place it was seenthat no kind of airship could be successfully provisioned for a flight ofindefinite length, and in the second place the probable strength of thewinds, or the crushing weight of the descending water, in case, as Cosmopredicted, a nebula should condense upon the earth, would either sweep anaero or a balloon to swift destruction, or carry it down into the waveslike a water-soaked butterfly.
Accordingly, when a few Frenchmen began seriously to consider thequestion of providing a way of escape from the flood--always supposing, forthe sake of argument, that there would be a flood--they got together, underthe leadership of an engineer officer named Yves de Beauxchamps, anddiscussed the matter in all its aspects. They were not long in arriving atthe conclusion that the best and most logical thing th
at could possibly bedone would be to construct a _submarine_.
In fact, this was almost an inevitable conclusion for them, because beforethe abandonment of submarines in war on account of their _too_ greatpowers of destruction--a circumstance which had also led to the prohibitionof the use of explosive bombs in the aerial navies--the French had heldthe lead in the construction and management of submersible vessels, evenmore decisively than in the case of aeros.
"A large submarine," said De Beauxchamps, "into whose construction acertain amount of levium entered, would possess manifest advantages overVersal's Ark. It could be provisioned to any extent desired, it wouldescape the discomforts of the waves, winds, and flooding rain, and itcould easily rise to the surface whenever that might be desirable forchange of air. It would have all the amphibious advantages of a whale."
The others were decidedly of De Beauxchamps's opinion, and it wasenthusiastically resolved that a vessel of this kind should be begun atonce.
"If we don't need it for a flood," said De Beauxchamps, "we can employ itfor a pleasure vessel to visit the wonders of the deep. We will then makea reality of that marvelous dream of our countryman of old, that prince ofdreamers, 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 thesubmersible _Jules Verne_ was laid. But we shall hear of that remarkablecraft again.
While animated, and in some cases violent, discussions were taking placein the learned circles of Europe, and a few were making ready in suchmanner as they deemed most effective for possible contingencies, waves ofpanic swept over the remainder of the Old World. There were yet hundredsof millions in Africa and Asia to whom the advantages of scientificinstruction had not extended, but who, while still more or less under thedominion of ignorance and superstition, were in touch with the _news_ ofthe whole planet.
The rumor that a wise man in America had discovered that the world wasto be drowned was not long in reaching the most remote recesses of theAfrican forests and of the boundless steppes of the greater continent,and, however it might be ridiculed or received with skeptical smiles inthe strongholds of civilization, it met with ready belief in lessenlightened minds.
Then, the three "signs"--the first great heat, the onslaught of storm andlightning, and the _Noche Triste_, the great darkness--had been world-widein their effects, and each had heightened the terror caused by itspredecessor. Moreover, in the less enlightened parts of the world thereassurances 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 newswalks, 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 themelting of the Arctic snows and ice-fields, with consequent inundationsin the north. This stage in the progress of the coming disaster wasaccentuated in Europe by the existence of the vast glaciers of the Alps.The Rocky Mountains, in their middle course, had relatively little snow andalmost no true glaciers, and consequently there were no scenes of this kindin the United States comparable with those that occurred in the heart ofEurope.
After the alarm caused by the great darkness in September had died out, andthe long spell of continuous clear skies began, the summer resorts ofSwitzerland were crowded as they had seldom been. People were driven thereby the heat, for one thing; and then, owing to the early melting of thewinter's deposit of snow, the Alps presented themselves in a new aspect.
Mountain-climbers found it easy to make ascents upon peaks which had alwayshitherto presented great difficulties on account of the vast snow-fields,seamed with dangerous crevasses, which hung upon their flanks. These werenow so far removed that it was practicable for amateur climbers to go wherealways before only trained Alpinists, accompanied by the most experiencedguides, dared to venture.
But as the autumn days ran on and new snows fell, the deep-seated glaciersbegan to dissolve, and masses of ice that had lain for untold centuries inthe mighty laps of the mountains, projecting frozen noses into the valleys,came tumbling down, partly in the form of torrents of water and partly inroaring avalanches.
The great Aletsch glacier was turned into a river that swept down into thevalley of the Rhone, carrying everything before it. The glaciers at thehead of the Rhone added their contribution. The whole of the BerneseOberland seemed to have suddenly been dissolved like a huge mass of sugarcandy, and on the north the valley of Interlaken was inundated, while thelakes of Thun and Brientz were lost in an inland sea which rapidly spreadover all the lower lands between the Alps and the Swiss Jura.
Farther east the Rhine, swollen by the continual descent of the glacierwater, burst its banks, and broadened out until Strasburg lay under waterwith the finger of its ancient cathedral helplessly pointing skyward outof the midst of the flood. All the ancient cities of the great valley fromBasle to Mayence saw their streets inundated and the foundations of theirmost 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 ittore down between the castle-crowned heights, sweeping away the villageson the river banks from Bingen to Coblentz, lashing the projecting rocksof the Lorelei, and carrying off houses, churches, and old abbeys in arush of ruin.
It widened out as it approached Bonn and Cologne, but the water was stilldeep enough to inundate those cities, and finally it spread over the plainof Holland, finding a score of new mouths through which to pour into theGerman Ocean, while the reclaimed area of the Zuyder Zee once more joinedthe ocean, and Amsterdam and the other cities of the Netherlands wereburied, 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, sendingfloods down to Geneva and over the Dauphiny and down into the plains ofPiedmont and Lombardy. The ruin was tremendous and the loss of lifeincalculable. Geneva, Turin, Milan, and a hundred other cities, wereswept by torrents.
The rapidity of this melting of the vast snow-beds and glaciers of theAlps was inconceivable, and the effect of the sudden denudation upon themountains themselves was ghastly. Their seamed and cavernous sides stoodforth, gaunt and naked, a revelation of Nature in her most fearful aspectssuch as men had never looked upon. Mont Blanc, without its blanket of snowand ice, towered like the blackened ruin of a fallen world, a sight thatmade the beholders shudder.
But this flood ended as suddenly as it had begun. When the age-longaccumulations of snow had all melted the torrents ceased to pour down fromthe mountains, and immediately the courageous and industrious inhabitantsof the Netherlands began to repair their broken dikes, while in NorthernItaly and the plains of Southeastern France every effort was made torepair the terrible losses.
Of course similar scenes had been enacted, and on even a more fearfulscale, in the plains of India, flooded by the melting of the enormous icyburden that covered the Himalayas, the "Abode of Snow." And all over theworld, 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 roaredbackward 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, andrushed up the Gulf of Finland, burying St. Petersburg, and turning allWestern Russia, and the plains of Pomerania into a sea. The Netherlandsdisappeared. The Atlantic poured through the narrow pass of the Strait ofGibraltar, leaving only the Lion Rock visible above the waves.
At length the ocean found its way into the Desert of Sahara, largeareas of which had been reclaime
d, and were inhabited by a considerablepopulation of prosperous farmers. Nowhere did the sudden coming of theflood cause greater consternation than here--strange as that statementmay seem. The people had an undefined idea that they were protected by asort of barrier from any possible inundation.
It had taken so many years and such endless labor to introduce into theSahara sufficient water to transform its potentially rich soil into arableland that the thought of any sudden superabundance of that element was farfrom the minds of the industrious agriculturalists. They had heard of theinundations caused by the melting of the mountain snows elsewhere, butthere 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 cloudsof whirling dust, that darkened the air and recalled the old days of thesimoom, they were taken completely by surprise. But as the water rosehigher they tried valiantly to escape. They were progressive people, andmany of them had aeros. Besides, two or three lines of aero expressescrossed their country. All who could do so immediately embarked inairships, some fleeing toward Europe, and others hovering about, gazingin despair at the spreading waters beneath them.
As the invasion of the sea grew more and more serious, this flight byairship 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 theirflood-gates, as they had done in the New World, and then the aeros, floodedwith rain, and hurled about by contending blasts of wind, drooped,fluttered, and fell by hundreds into the fast mounting waves. The nebulawas upon them!
In the meantime those who had provided arks of one kind or another, trieddesperately to get them safely afloat. All the vessels that succeeded inleaving their wharves were packed with fugitives. Boats of every sort werepressed into use, and the few that survived were soon floating over thesites of the drowned homes of their occupants.
Before it was too late Yves de Beauxchamps and his friends launched theirsubmarine, and plunged into the bosom of the flood.