OCR Text |
Show Only Shadows. From the accounts it seems clear that the .people of St. Pierre died before the storm of fire struck the ill-fated city. By the rending rend-ing of the mountain a great volume of "dead-air" "dead-air" as miners would turn it, but really carbonic car-bonic acid gas; was released; it swept down and through the city and all animal life perished, per-ished, even as men die when lowered into the same kind of gas in the bottom of a shaft. In one respect it was a merciful dispensation, dis-pensation, for they sank down into a painless pain-less death. The features of the dead are reported calm as if in sleep, as is the rule when men are thus asphyxiated. The storm of fire followed later. Probably no other such a cataclysm was ever before known. First there was a rush of poisonous gas which killed instantly every living creature that breathes it, then swiftly following came the lava flow, literally a storm of molten rock, scoria and ashes, which in turn consumed con-sumed everything fusable in the fated city. It is a reminder of how frail a hold mortals mor-tals have on life. The earth has elements enough of destruction to overwhem the whole planet and all animal existence in a moment of time, even as St. Pierre was overwhelmed. over-whelmed. It has been done more than once. The periods are fixed by science. The last one no doubt was produced by the earth tipping on its axis, for at the time Siberia was a I tropical country, as is established by the i remains of plants and animals that are even yet found in the ice. The earth's crust was ! shivered; the boiling waters escaped into i the air and fell in snow and ice and as at St. Pierre ail animal life perished, probably instantly. in-stantly. New shores then had to be made for the oceans, new channels had to be hewed out for the rivers; the work of repair required thousands, possibly millions of years, before the world was fitted'to become a habitation for man. Those same elements of destruction remains re-mains in full force; they are held like hounds in leash, but they are fierce and strong and pitiless as ever. Man lives only by sufferance; he is not sure of existence for a moment of time; . whether he pursues shadows or not, he, himself, him-self, is but at best a shadow. |