Therefore, there will one day come an end to all human life and 5 interests. The elements of the earth must all be dissolved or utterly destroyed in order that they all may be created anew in innocence, and that no remnant may be left to tutor men in vice. There will be more moisture then than there ever was before. At present the elements are all carefully adjusted to the parts they have to fulfil. To destroy the equipoise in which the balance stands, there must be some addition to one or other of them. The addition will be to moisture. It has, at present, power to surround, but not to overwhelm the earth. Any addition to it must of necessity overflow into ground that does not now belong to it.[60] So the earth as the weaker is bound to yield to sea which has gathered unnatural strength. So it will begin to rot, then to be loosened and converted into moisture, and to waste away by the 6 continuous drain. Rivers will then issue forth beneath mountains, shaking them to the foundations by their fury; then they will flow on in silence without a breath of air. The soil will everywhere give forth water; the tops of mountains will pour it out, just as disease corrupts what is sound, and an ulcer taints its whole vicinity. The nearer the part is to the soil that is being liquefied, the more quickly will it be washed off, dissolved, and finally carried away. The rock will everywhere gape in fissures, and the fresh supplies of water will leap down into the gulfs, and unite in forming one great sea. There will be no Adriatic any longer, no strait in the Sicilian Sea, no Charybdis, no Scylla. All the fabulous dangers will be swallowed up in the new sea; 7 the existing Ocean which surrounds the fringes of the earth will come into the centre. [60] The text is uncertain, but the meaning fairly obvious. Nor will this be all. As if this were not enough, winter will seize upon months that are not his, summer will be stopped, the heat of every heavenly body that dries up earth’s moisture will be quenched and cease. All these names will be obliterated--Caspian and Red Sea, Ambracian and Cretan Gulfs, the Pontus and the Propontis. All distinctions will disappear. All will be mixed up which nature has 8 now arranged in its several parts. Nor will walls and battlements afford protection to any. Temples will not save their worshippers, nor citadels their refugees. The wave will anticipate the fugitives, and sweep them down from their very stronghold. Some enemies will hasten from the west, others from the east. A single day will see the burial of all mankind. All that the long forbearance of fortune has produced, all that has been reared to eminence, all that is famous and all that is beautiful, great thrones, great nations--all will descend into the one abyss, will be overthrown in one hour. XXX