And gas--thick black clouds of it--billowing over the cities, seeking every possible egress, pushed forward by colossal Wind machines. But even when Victory came for the one side, often Nature, in one of her vengeful moments, would send the black gas flowing back to annihilate its senders. Rays cut the air! Power bombs exploded incessantly! Evaporays robbed the Earth of its water--shot it up into the atmosphere and made of it a fog that condensed only after many months. And heat rays made deserts out of fertile terrain. Rays that hypnotized caused even the strong minded to commit suicide or reveal military secrets. Rays that effected the optical nerves swept cities and left the population groping and blind, unable to find food. It was a war that destroyed almost all of humanity. And why were they fighting? _For pleasure and amusement!_ In the middle of the twenty-second century, every nation had a standard defense. The weapons of war of each were equal--not in proportion to size, but actually, since man-power no longer counted high. Pacifism had done its best, but the World was armed to the hilt. And now--though illogically--it felt safe--for every nation meant the same as if all had nothing. Another thing--there was no work to be done. Robots did it. And there seemed nothing left to discover, invent or enjoy. Art was at its perfection, poetry was mathematically correct and unutterably beautiful--worked out by the Esthetic machines. Sculptoring had been given the effect complete, artists hands guided by wonderful pieces of machinery. Huge museums were crammed with art put out synthetically. And thus it was with the many Arts and their creators who grew stagnent in their perfection. And it was that way with the many sciences also.... Paleontologists had found, and articulated, and catalogued every fossil. The ancestor of the Eohippus, the little four-toed Dawn Horse, was discovered; the direct line between man and ape established in skeletal remains; the seat of _life_ itself definitely proved Holarctica. And great bio-chemists, skilled in the science of vital processes, had created synthetic tissues and muscles and flesh, built upon the frames that had been recovered bodies with skillful modeling ... even supplied them with blood and given them the spark of LIFE ... so that Paleobotonists recreated the flora of a prehistoric era. Again the ponderous amphibious brontosaur pushed through marshes. Fish emerged upon the land, and the first bird archaeopteryx tried his imperfect wings for flight. In the regulated climates of long dead ages, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals lived again for the edification of those interested in the very ancient--or who were amused with queer animals.