Scientists, indeed, when confronted with accounts of what had taken place, could only shake their heads in somewhat helpless perplexity. No ordinary conditions, of course, could account for such a tremendous and unprecedented rise as this. They ventured the suggestion, though, that some great subterranean upheaval or earthquake might have forced up the bed of the ocean in some spot to such a distance as to heighten the level of the waters. If such an upheaval had taken place in some central spot, they pointed out, such as the Arctic or Antarctic regions, it might well have caused such a great rise as this in the level of all the sea. They were unable, however, to explain the fact that during the last few weeks no such upheaval or quake whatever had been recorded by the seismographs of the world. Unchecked by any positive knowledge as to the thing's cause, therefore, it could be argued and discussed during the next day or two with zest, and many and fantastic were the explanations that were advanced. The great space devoted to it by the newspapers had aroused the public's fickle interest, and during the next two days the sea and the great tides which were rolling in from it against the coasts of all the world became the center of a world-wide interest. In Sussex and in Anglesey, in Maine and in California, in Korea as in Ceylon, there were everywhere large groups of interested spectators gathered along cliff and sea-wall and beach, to watch those great green tides shattering themselves against the shore, and to speculate idly on the subject of general interest. In England and the Continent, as well as in America, special excursion trains were run to many beaches, and the proprietors of resorts reaped a sudden and unexpected harvest. It was true that here and there some damage had been done by the rising of the waters, and by the great, unnatural tides, but it was not of a magnitude large enough to arouse attention. A row of bathing-machines wrecked, a road or sea-wall washed away, a beached boat or two swept out to sea--such events as these could hardly seem important to the mass of people in comparison to the strange conditions which had caused them. It was also true that the lot of ships at sea had become suddenly very arduous, due to the great seas running, and that large numbers of the smaller boats had been forced to remain in port until the great tides abated, yet even this made no impression save on that small portion of the world's population which follows the sea. The larger part of the public chose, during those two days, to regard this strange manifestation as a spectacle rather designed for its own entertainment and interest. On the evening of the second day, though, the 6th, there came that which suddenly swept away this attitude.