Four days after the meeting of comet and asteroid, which was duly reported by observing astronomers, newsboys were again crying, "Extra!" in the streets of Washington. An evening paper had been made the recipient of the following, the result of calculation on the part of Thornton: EARTH TO BE ANNIHILATED! ASTEROID "MEDUSA" WILL TORPEDO OUR PLANET ON APRIL 22. CATACLYSM NOW ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN It is announced positively by the officials of the National Observatory that the asteroid Medusa, having been arrested in its orbit by its collision with the comet, is now plunging toward the sun with an increasing hourly acceleration and will undoubtedly hit the earth in less than five months from to-day. Calculations have shown that the point of impact will be in Mexico on the line of latitude passing through Tampico, though it is possible that the body may fall in the Pacific if the time of arrival is a little later than that predicted, or in the gulf of Mexico, if earlier. The opinions held by the leading scientific men of the country as to the immediate effects of the collision differ in the extreme. Some consider that, aside from earthquakes, tidal waves and considerable atmospheric disturbances, the destructive effects will be confined to an area of not more than three or four hundred miles radius. Others believe, however, that the concussion will destroy all life over the greater part of two Americas, and that the "splash" of the asteroid will bury the United States under a layer of fused rock, broken stones, dust, and mud to a depth varying from several miles in Texas to several feet in Maine and Oregon. All agree, however, in the belief that every building in the United States will be razed to the ground by the shock, and that the atmospheric disturbances will be such as to render the loss of life enormous over the entire continent. The most extreme view is that taken by Professor Katz, of Columbia, who asserts that the impact will reduce our globe to powder. His colleague, Professor Smithers, claims that that part of the earth's surface subjected to the blow will be entirely fused and vaporized, while other scientists believe that the concurrent earthquake shock will travel completely around the earth and destroy all life upon both hemispheres. All agree that, if nothing worse occurs, the vast bulk of the asteroid will penetrate the film of the earth's surface for several hundred miles, the globe's diurnal rotation will be affected, the shape will be changed, and its orbit around the sun will be altered. Ultimate consequences cannot be predicted but THE END OF THE WORLD IS AT HAND!