He seemed thoroughly alarmed, and I soon found that all the people shared his feeling. The movement of the earth carried us out of sight of the moon in a few hours, but after a brief rest everybody was on the watch again at the next revolution. The excitement over the behavior of our once despised moon increased rapidly from this time. Nothing else was talked of, business was well-nigh suspended, and the newspapers neglected everything else to tell about the unparalleled natural phenomenon. Speculation was rife as to what would be the end, and what effect would follow a union of the earth with its satellite. While this discussion was going on, the unwelcome visitor was approaching with noticeable rapidity at every revolution of the earth, and the immense dark shadow which it now made, as it passed beneath the sun, seemed ominous of an ill fate to our world and its inhabitants. It was a time to try the stoutest hearts, and, of course, the multitude of the people were overwhelmed with alarm. As no one could do anything to ward off what seemed a certain catastrophe, the situation was all the more dreadful. Men could only watch the monster, speculate as to the result, and wait, with horrible suspense, for the inevitable. The circle of revolution was now becoming so small that the crisis was hourly expected. Men everywhere left their houses and sought the shelterless fields, and it was well they did so, for there came a day when the earth received a sudden and awful shock. After it had passed, people looked at each other wonderingly to find themselves alive, and began congratulating each other, thinking the worst was over. But the dreadful anxiety returned when, after some hours, the moon again appeared, a little tardy this time, but nearer and more threatening than ever. The news was afterwards brought that it had struck the high mountain peaks of Central Asia, tearing down their sides with the power of a thousand glaciers and filling the valleys below with ruin. It was now felt that the end must soon come, and this was true, for at the earth’s very next revolution the tired and feeble satellite, once the queen of the sky and the poet’s glory, scraped across the continent of South America, received the death blow in collision with the Andes, careened, and fell at last into the South Pacific Ocean. The shock given to the earth was tremendous, but no other result was manifest except that the huge mass displaced water enough to submerge many islands and to reconstruct the shore lines of every continent. There was untold loss of life and property, of course, but it is astonishing how easily those who were left alive accepted the new state of things, when it was found that the staid earth, in spite of the enormous wart on her side, was making her daily revolution almost with her accustomed regularity.