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Show trary, is remarkably Inert, entering In- with reluctant, and freeing llorif with extraordinary facility; Its compounds are notably unstable, often to the extent of being violently explosive, and It ia aa useless for the maintenance of life aa ashes to to combination feed Is the earth drying up? It la a startling question; and, what Is yet more startling, the answer given by science is undoubtedly affirmative. Not that there Is any occasion for alarm. The terrestrial water supply is adequate for a long time to come. It Is not id our day that the fountains of the deep will fall; neither we nor our children, nor our children's children, are likely to from the melting Ice cape still descend In floods at certain seasons, making a system of irrigation possible; and It Is a well known fact that the telescope reveals what appears to be a network of canals all over the planets disk. Tbs moon, being much smaller, has reashed a still more advanced stage. Water Is as essential to the life of a world as blood to the life of a man; and the moon Is like a dried and shrivelled mummy, dead for ages. Its almost airless sky If sky it can be called Is without cloud or rain; the basins of its lakes and the beds of Its ancient seas are empty; Its parched rocka are unclothed with verdure, and appear like a ragged mass of hardened slag. Such Is a perished world In Its last estate, the result of the complete disappearance of water from Its surface; and, If scientific reasoning Is of any valuer there Is little room for doubt that the earth Is on its way to a condition equally deplorable. For the teachings of geology and chemistry lead to the same conclusion. There is no doubt that there was once fur more water on the earth than now far too much In fart. Vast oceans of hot and turbid brine raged over almost Its entire surface. The murky air was torn with storms of which we can form but the faintest conception. Over what Utile land there was the acid laden rains poured with Incredible violence, eating and wearing the hard rock until finally a soil was formed capable of sustaining vegetable life. Then the waters slowly cooled and cleared and subsided. suffer from a general water famine. Tbs question Is a real one, none the less, and most serious; for upon the answer depends the ultimate fate of be human race. And this answer, based upon strict scientific reasoning and the most Just analogies accessible to im, Is, as has been stated, affirmative. Our earth, In very truth, ia slowly drying up. Of all the planets of the solar system Mars bears the closest resemblance to the world on which we dwell this Is conceded. Further, It Is in every way probable that Mars Is, or has been, covered with vegetation; there Is much reason to believe that It Is even now, like our own orb, a theater of life. But It Is older In effect, much older than the earth. Listen to what Per-clvLowell, one of the highest authorities on this subject, says of Its present condition. After a careful survey of all the evidence he summarises al the matter thus It follows that Mars Is very badly off for water. Such scarcity of water on Mara Is Just what theory would lead us to expert. Mars la a smaller planet than the earth, and advanced therefore Is relatively more In his evolutionary career. ' He Is older In age If not In years; for whether his birth as a separate world antedated hang Now rrogrpMlag. They are still subsiding, though the ( an atmosphere so slight that we cannot detect it. And owning to this thinness of air there will be few clouds, and little If any rain; even the winds will subside into Insignificance. , At the poles, however, and on the heights, snow will still fall, and on the snow will still fall, or at any rate frost will be deposited In large quantities; and the melting of the Ice caps thus formed will furnish the whole available supply of water. The streams from this source, which will be fairly abundant In season of flood, will be carefully guided through an Intricate system of canals and stingily hoarded In huge reservoirs, whence It will be drawn for Irrigation and other necessary uses. Gold and silver will not be half so precious as this beautiful, transparent liquid of which we are ho lavish; wealth will be measured in cubic feet of water, and a spring or fountain will be more valuable than any mine. Nor can this be called a mere fancy picture. To all appearances It Is exactly the state of affairs which obtains on Mars at the present time. fire. Our Dead Earth. We conclude, therefore, that the atmosphere, while It becomes leas in volume and density, will at the same time deteriorate in quality, and the lungs of man muat needs accommodate themselves to the change by gradually enlarging their capacity. Thua the very constitution and aspect of the human rat will In the ronrae of agea Buffer marked alteration. And what will be the final outcome? It la a disheartening picture. 'Even the scanty supply of water which we have thus far assumed, muat at length begin to fail; it will no longer be sufficient for the entire population. Unavoidably some must perish. There Is no Imaginable alternative; and who shall It be? It ia Impossible to conceive of any other solution than a struggle for hare existence fiercer than anything which history records a conflict In which the etrongest and moat unscrupulous will constantly prevail. 8uch a condition of things means, of course, a rapid reversion to savagery; and that, In turn, will but hasten the end, for the elaborate system of works necessary to make this decadent world habitable can be raiuu-talne- d only by n strong and wise government under a high civilization. If thla falls, tbe last degenerate remnant of the race will soon be extinguished the sooner tbe better, when that aad stage Is reached. And what next? At last poor mother earth, dry and shrunken with age, the bloom of flower and leaf quite faded from her cheeks, her face scarred and pitted with the tombs of all her offspring, will lie as dead and silent as the ghostly moon. ).'N The whole ocean bed, therefore, will be like a vast valley of the Nile-fer- tile, Indeed, but rendered so only by Incessant care and the highest engineering skill; while above and around It will lie a chill Sahara, a desolate and deadly waate, unwet with showers, unprotected by any veil of cloud. Its impotent atmosphere scarcely sufficient to drift Its abounding dust. All over It will be scattered the unvislted remains of the. cities that we know, and Its plains will be furrowed with the half obliterated channels of our great rivers. It will have but one re- - a ON MARRYING A POOR MAN. Words of Encouragement for the (ilrl Who llors It. "I have been young and now am oiu, said one of the charming middle-age- d women of the period, whose looks belle the baptismal register and who rather enjoy arrogating to themselves the wisdom and experience of age, saya the New York Journal. "And I have reached that period of life, she continued, "when I can look back and see results and note how seldom those who arc born with silver spoons In their mouths, as the saying Is. Lave the silver fork when they are grown up. When T look back and remember who were the Jeunesse doree of my youth the men whose lives and poaltlonj above all others seemed particularly enviable and desirable and then look about me now and see how few of those men who were called men of pleasure In those days have attained an honorable and useful middle-agI feel that I can preach a sermon to my boya and their friends with object lessons that ought to make it very Impressive. Some are poor, having spent health and substance, like the prodigal, In riotous living. Even those who have apparently not guttered in purse or health, are a set of discontented, blaae, weary worldlings, who go over the same treadmill of fashionable existence year by year without pleasure or profit. Another thing 1 have noticed from my vantage ground of experience la that, if only as a purely worldly maxim, hont esty certainly la the best policy. man I have seen who has destroyed his prospects by the crooked ways In which he sought to better himself financially, politically and even socially, whereas, If he had walked honorably before all men, he would have gained the world's good opinion and 111 many instances the very things he coveted. And finally there are the young married couple of my youth. In nine cases out of ten those of my friends who married poor young men end who gave up the luxury of their homea to prove veritable helpmeets to the men of their choice are now almost without exception prosperous and In many cases wealthy, while those men and girls who married for money are, as a rule, greatly In want of It. 'Be good and you will be happy is the old maxim and certainly it seems true from a materialistic as well as from a religious point of view." e, Man;-brllllan- nec-aarl- ly jttoms. As os Sin. On Mars the same process is guing a. but would seem not yet to hsve regressed so far, the seas there being ildway In tbelr career from the real ls to arid and depressed deserts, no mger water surfaces, they are still (0 lowest portions of tbe planet, aad, terefore, stand to receive what scant ater may yet travel over the surfs is." (Ian, pp. Mere, then, are not one, but two, object lessons, and any care-- il reader will readily perceive that Ur. swell assumes as unquestioned that B analogy Is strictly applicable to ie earth. Man has gradually dried way, until Its surface Is like a desert. Brough parts of which the etreams 122-123- .) ve process Is so gradual as to be Imperceptible to man. Just as of old. soma portion of moisture Is constantly sinking deeply Into the bowels of the earth, never to reappear; while another portion is every moment entering Into ehemlcal combinations which convert It Into solid substance, and little of this Is ever released. Tbe world now is In a transition state, and probably Is near that stage of evolution most favorable to the existence and deIn velopment of Intelligent beings. the remote past the condltlbna were incompatible with life; In the remote future life will again become Impossible, and the lack of water will presumably be the prime cause of Its final disappearance. Let us now endeavor to trace the scries of changes by which this will be brought about, and their progressive Influence upon man and human Institutions, Only the drained fields of what is now the bed of the ocean will be suitable for occupation by the human race. Even there little water will remain, though In the lowest depths a few Intensely aallne lakes will linger, their desolate banks crusted with salt, their waters more Intolerable than those of the Dead Rea. Just as tbe waters will have brooms scant, so the air will have become thin. Such y; apparently Is the rase on Mars and tbe moon haa ro sir at all ef has to-da- matnlng use it will have become the cemetery of the world, both tbe old and the new. The great valley below, which Is to ua the bottom of the sea, will be densely crowded with a popula tlon which will admit of no increase, How the people of that late and de dining age will solve the difficult problems that will confront them It ia hardly possible even to conjecture, but meet them they must, or perish. A highly paternal form of government would seem to bo inevitable, for the water must be parcelled out with the utmost wisdom and Impartiality, and no waits can be tolerated. Navigation, of course, will be a thing of the past; even the Ashes will become almost or quite ex tlnct. More than this, man will doubtless have Buffered actual physical mod' Ideations, gradually brought about by the changes in his environment. Some of these will be due to atmospheric rhanges. for the air, besides being much diminished, will almost surely be impoverished In Its most vital element. It Is n very suggestive fact that the proportion of oxygen la only about one part In five: we are pretty safe In assuming that the proportion waa once considerably greater., Oxy gen Is an extremely active element, eagerly entering Into combinations of various kinds which lock U up In solid or fluid form. Nitrogen, on the con' to-d- ay fm-ounu- two-legg- ed y. The Flying Frog. Invertebrate creatures able to fly without wings are extremely rare. Vertebrates which can fly are, on the other hand, numerous. They may be divided Into five classes: Fish, batra-chlan- s, reptiles, birds and mammals. Among the batraebians the flyers are represented by the Reinwardts It Is a strange looking frog, or rather green frog, for the feet are Immense. Spread out they cover a larger area than the whole of the rest of the body. Thanks to this parachutelike attachment the rhacophorus can flit from branch to branch and pounce without difficulty on the small Insects which form his food. It is a pretty little beast, bright green on the back and orange colored underneath, dotted with black or blue spots.. There la something curious in watching the different ways nature takes with various creatures to achieve a similar end. To enable crustaceans, fish and frogs to support themselves In the air she has simply extended each ones means of locomotion. With reptiles she proceeds differently in taking the skin from the flanks and extending It by means of false ribs umbrellawlse. An example of this kind Is found In the flying dragon of the Malayan archipelago. In repose the dragon alts quietly on branch, but aa soon as he sees an Insect he flings himself at it and rarely misses his mark. Thanks to the spreading flanks of his akin the nlr upholds him, he alights gently on n lower branch and is ready to renew the chase Indefinitely. In prehistoric days flying reptiles were very numerous. It Is only necessary to mention the dragon and the Psychoxolc nnd In geological times the gigantic flying Onorthosaurus, which has completely disappeared off the face of the earth. Ioma-cephalu- One Explorer Buffers from Thirst .eld Another from Cold. The arctic explorers complain of different causes of misery which they encounter in the far north, saya the New York Journal. Dr. Naiisen saya tbe thirat. Induced by the terribly Irksome labor of sledge-haulin- g, gave him most trouble. Though the polar world Is covered with frozen water there is none for drinking purposes save that which Is thawed and on the march It' is almost Impossible to get this without halting to thaw it Other explorers compain of the effects of the wind and the sun. It la well known that a very low degree of cold can be borne without discomfort so long as the air Is still, but the moment it gets In motion It strikes the skin like the blast of a furnace. Its effects have often been described as precisely similar to those of a burn. The sun, when It lz visible, Is hot and peels and blisters tbe skin. But perhaps after all the greatest evil and misery which confronts the polar explorer spring from the fearful depression, mental and physical, of the long nlghta of two and three thousand lfoura of gloom and semi darkness. Under Its Influence men seem to suffer like plants deprived of sunlight A week or so will often completely change their characters and the enforced Idleness, universal gloom and bitter cold combined reduce life to Its lowest terms and make it so miserable that many have found refuge from It In Insanity or suicide. -- PERSONALS. President Faure, in hla shooting license for last year, waa described aa getting gray. Consuelo, duchess of Marlborough, Is loved by all the tenants on her husband's estates. Postmaster Ocncral Wilson will try the rural free delivery at his home, Charlestown, V. Ya. Prof, Morris, of the university of Melbourne, Is preparing a dictionary of Australian English. The emperor of Germany stands in the direct line of suctwenty-fir- st cession to the British throne. A granite block has been erected to the memory of Prof. Huxley on the southern shore of tbe Lake of 81 is. Sylvanus Dodge Locke, who haa Just died at Hooslck Falls, N, Y., was the inventor of the first grain binding machine. Johan Strauss Is working on a new r. operetta on the text by William The work will be finished at the end of next year. e, Prof. Vlllard, of the Paris Ecole has at last succeeded In combining argon and water. It required a pressure of 200 atmospheres to do 1L Ellen Gulbranson and Frits Friedrichs, two of the new singers who made a sensation at Bayreuth this season, have been engaged by the Royal Opera. The Gaekwar of Baroda possesses the most costly sword In the world. The hilt Is so set with preolous stones that the weapon la worth at least 220,000. Dr. Max Wllf, of Heidelberg, has discovered five new asteroid on photographs of the heavens. This brings the number of minor planets up to Remarkable Flare. High Tides Affect Wells. When the pig la not only a domestic high-watmarks of several but a friend, aa he apextraordinary high tides have been animal,to be In family the Marquesas Islands, pears and Michael's St. Easton at Point, kept he develops unsuspected cleverness. Oxford. What is known as the cenIn the South Seas, one of Robert tennial tide" of September, 1876, haa last books, gives held the record of the highest water Louis Stevensons of proof. Many Instances by way many last mark, and still holds it, although Islanders live with their pigs as we do was 1) tide (Oct. morning's Thursday Mr. Stevenson obwithin an inch of the centennial mark. with our dogs, crowd both around the hearth served; effect The recent flood had a singular on the flow of .the artesian wells on with equal freedom, and the Island pig a fellow of activity, enterprise and TUghman's Island. These wells fiver-ag-e is 400 feet In depth, and many of sense. He husks his own cocoanuta and I am told rolls them into the sun to them have n surface overflow, which in creased fully double In velocity and burst; he Is the terror of the shepherd. more In volume when the tide was at Mrs. Stevenson, senior, has seen a pig Its highest. It ass been noticed before fleeing to the woods with a lamb in his mouth; and I saw another come rapidthat'any unusual high tide la percept! flow of on ly and erroneously to the conclusion the haa It effect in tbe ble that tha Casco was going down, nnd the wells. swim through the flush water to the rail In search of an escape. It was told A Cheep Meal. During tbe past few. years, Mr. Lee us In childhood that pigs cannot awlm; I have known one to leap overboard, Jones, honorable secretary of tbe Liverunawlm Are hundred yards to shore, and labored baa association, Food pool tiringly to rid the seaport of under return to the house of his original ownasfeeding and starvation, and every day er. I was once, at Tautlra, a pigm ter on n considerable scale. At first, In he feeds some thousands of school children. Each child Is given one pint my pen, the utmost good feeling preof thick soup and one slice of Jam and vailed. A little sow with a bellyache pennycame and appealed to ua for help In the bread. For this they psy one-ha- lf -one farthing defrays the cost of manner of a child; and there was ona the food, and the other farthing pays shapely black boar, whom we called tbe working expenses. The meals pro. Cathollcus, for he waa a particular 423. Tided are., we are Informed, practically William Thompson. C. E., of Lonpresent from tha Catholics of the vilvegetarian. Mr. Lee Jonee conceived lage, and who early displayed the don, received ths Idea of pneumatic and began the scheme, and in view of marks of courage and friendliness. No tires from the pneumatic springs, the anticipated development of the as- other animal, whether dog or pig, waa which were proposed for carriages In sociation, ho has been appointed honsuffered to approach him at his food. 1345. orable director. The trs or not his smaller slxe, by causing jb to cool more quickly, would age him faster. But as a planet grows old Its eans, la all probability, dry up. the stcr retreating through cracks and Titles' Into Its Interior. Water thus sappears from Us surface, to sayd (thing of what ia continually imprls-teby chemical combinations. Sign having thus parted with Its oceans e see In the csss of the mdon, whose seaa were probably seaa In lelr day, but have now become old sea and for human brings hs showed a full measure of that toadying fondness, so NATURAL HISTORY. common in tbe lower animals, nnd possibly their chief title to the name. One day, on visiting my piggery, I was t Cralt. The amazed to tee Cathollcus draw back The cocounut crab Is one of the odd- from my approach with cries of terror; est specimens of tbe whole crab family. and if I was amazed at the change, 1 He lives in the South Islands, and waa truly embarrassed when I learned makes a diet of cocoanuta. This Its reason. Cue of tbe pigs had that aperies has a pair of front legs ter- morning been killed; Cathollcus bad minated with a strong pair of pinchers, seen the murder, he had discovered he and It la with these that he husks the waa dwelling In the shambles, and from nuts and breaks through the weakest that time hla confidence and hla delight portion of the shell. The crab begins in life were ended. We still reserved by tearing the busk, fiber by fiber, and him a loug while, but be could not enalways at the end where the eyeholes dure the sight uf any creaof the nut are situated, that being tha ture, nor could we. under tbe circumweakest place in the shell. When the stance!, encounter hla eye without husk has been removed the crab commences hammering the shell with his heavy claws, and soon makes an openBREAD STORIES. ing, through 'which he extracts the meat of the nut. Mr. Darwin, writing Thn Breton Feeeant BrUovea la th of this crab, says: I think this Is as Power of Cramlie. curious a case of instinct as I ever la aupposable that bread, homeIt heard of, especially in structures so re- made or bakers, belngfree from adulmote from each other In the scheme of terations, would be a singularly simple nature as a cocoanut and n crab." and honest substance and therefore have no power In regard to tbe evil rye,, A Srlenrlfle Dragon-Flbut It seems that It baa, saya the New Moat of the Inventions of man have York Times. Nothing can be more their counterpart In nature. The ewan beautiful than tbe act of the Breton la the model of the stately ship, deep peasant who, before cutting hla loaf, sea fish are found to carry with them makes the sign of the cross on it. If Incandescent lamps to light them on ho stopped there, expressing hla thanktheir way, and Instances may he mul- fulness for food, that would be well,, carries him much tiplied Indefinitely. And now comes but superstition a species of dragon fly which used the farther. If a child la born to him, n twin ncrew as a propeller long before crumb of that bread, especially If it he Fulton thought of tbe steamship. This rye bread, la put Into the infant's Is not nn Imaginary creature, ns some sleeve and then the chances of tbe might suppose. It Is, however, one of babys having the colic are diminished. the most extraordinary creatures In the If a cow shows signs of sickness or a world, and tbe only one of its kind. horse la lame a crumb of the bread la Its owner, a former governor of Port- supposed to benefit the animal. In land prison, was a keen collector of all Bavaria, when you go Into the woods, aorta of beetles and winged Insects. especially that portion infested by pirlta, only put a crust of bread In Once during his wanderings In Brasil he chanced upon what seemed to him your mouth and no ghost, aplrlte or a dragon fly of unusual shape. Catch- witch can trouble you. Somehow many ing it in hla net he found to his as- retain nn Idea of the peculiar sanctity tonishment that In addition to Its of bread. For Instance, It ia all right wings It had twin archimedian screws, to leave a bit of meat on your plate, one on each side of Its long body, which but It la wicked to leave a piece of revolved In the same manner as a bread. Very good fathers and mothers that Idea and little chilships screw. On his return to England dreninculcate believe then that there la someha waa offered yi,500 for It by tha authorities of the British museum. Being thing particularly sacred about bread a man of wealth he declined tbe offer which a potato does not possess, and and made it the center ornament of a thla ia sheer nonsense. All waste la beautiful collection of tropical Insects. to be avoided, but there iq no more Unfortunately, In capturing it two of special goodneu in bread than there la the blades were broken off one of the In a sausage. screws; otherwise it was In perfect POLAR MISERIES. preservation. er m Buch-blnde- Nor-mal- |