"Those days are gone. We are now faced with an axis change--disastrous only because it is changing so quickly. And I want you to know just exactly what the change is. Conceive again your orange at the right hand of the table, with the pencil point tilted away from the sun at that twenty-three and one-half degree angle. We were like that last December. But since then a new world has come into the solar system. Its coming has disturbed the old order of things with us. The eraser of that lead pencil--our South Pole--is moving up further toward the sun! "Take the orange a short distance along the table edge, and tilt the pencil still further. That is where we are now, in February! Don't you realize that more of our southern hemisphere is now in the constant light, and more of the northern in the constant darkness? And now, tilt the lead pencil further until it is horizontal to the table. "The eraser--the South Pole--points directly to the sun! That is the position we will reach next April. Rotate the orange, holding the pencil level. You will see that the light remains on the southern half of the orange, and the northern half remains dark! On April 5, we will have no day and night! "Six months later the earth will be halfway around its orbit. The axis will remain in that new fixed position. The reverse condition then will exist. Our North Pole will point to the sun! Light and heat in the North! Darkness and cold in the South! So do not be too hasty in trying to get away! These next few months will be bad, but after that we will learn how to weather them. We cannot all live on the equator! Stay where you are and help us fight it through!" * * * * * Futile words! But it was the panic of flight--the attempted rush of so many millions of people--the disorganization of all those myriad activities upon which life depends--which was our greatest danger. Futile words! Impotent governments, themselves disingenuous, for they were all preparing for hasty flight to warmer, more equable regions! On February 22 the National Capital of the United States was moved from Washington, District of Columbia, to temporary housing in Miami, Florida. And even there, the great Florida city was disorganized, snow-covered, with very nearly zero temperature. The deaths throughout the northern hemisphere that February of 1953 will never be counted. A million? Many millions--I would hesitate to guess. There were some nine million people within the limits of Greater New York on Christmas. By mid-February I suppose there were no more than a scant fifty thousand left--and these, most of them, were trying to get away. A dark, almost deserted, buried city--buried in a white shroud which mercifully hid its tragedy. I caught one last glimpse of the sun--the one clear day; the sun at noon just creeping above the southern horizon and then plunging back. The Arctic night was on us.