The civilized world received the astounding news of the pending annihilation of the earth, first, with the amused silence of incredulity, and then with a gasp of horror that swept over the entire surface of the globe. The immediate reaction of the human brain to this inconceivable catastrophe was that of sublime disbelief in its possibility. The finite mind, incapable, as it is, of grasping the infinities, resolutely declined to accept any proposition outside the history of man's experience. Since that moment when the human race in the course of evolution, had appeared upon the face of our planet, the latter's orbit through space had never been attacked or even affected by any other celestial body, and since the earth had spun for countless millions of years in its regular course about the center of the solar system, and summer had inevitably followed winter, and men had been born, made love, fought, and died, no one was ready at first to accept the simple scientific truth that, if a meteorite weighing perhaps only a single ton could fall flaming earthward to bury itself in some farmer's plowed field, there was no reason, in the nature of things, why a meteorite a million times larger should not do the same thing, or why another planet several times larger than the earth should not shatter it to atoms. Kings, emperors, presidents, sultans, and rajahs, with their courts, Cabinets, and wise men, treated the preliminary announcement of the observatories of Washington, Moscow, and Greenwich much as they had in the past treated the prophecies of clairvoyants and others that the day of Judgment was positively going to occur on certain specified dates. The newspapers carefully refrained from any editorial comment. Somebody, evidently, had made a big mistake which would presently be discovered, and then everybody would breathe easily again. But, unfortunately, the supposed mistake obstinately continued to remain undetected, and further observations merely served to corroborate those already made and to substantiate, not only the probability but the absolute certainty of what Thornton had prophesied. Then, with a shriek of astonishment and despair the newspapers of all the nations gave themselves over to this, the greatest sensation in the history of the planet, and the combined energies of astronomers throughout the entire globe were concentrated upon determining, so far as possible, the size and weight of the falling asteroid, and the point upon the surface of the earth which would receive its momentous impact.