He said he had been gazing down over the slope in question when the disaster had happened. First came a great flash of light in the air above, the flash of some colossal glittering body swooping from above to earth's surface. He could not describe what he claimed to have seen of it in that lightning-like glimpse, and could describe it only as of something huge and glittering, and roughly scoop-like in shape. In the very second that he saw it, it had struck the slope, and then with great speed had rushed forward, along it, half-burying itself in the earth, emitting a loud, grinding roar. In an instant it had streaked like light along the slope for several miles and then with an upward flash was gone, the noise gradually ceasing. This tale, even doubted by the man's companions, certainly received small credit from the outside world. The paper that I read mentioned the story only as an illusion, born of excitement, and went on to point out that while the Mannlertown cataclysm had been repeated the explanation accepted for it had not been disproved. It simply meant that another giant meteor had grazed our globe, and it might well be that the earth was passing through a swarm of them. I will own, however, that to me the meteor explanation seemed rather weakened by this so exact repetition of the first catastrophe, and I could not see how this recurring catastrophe could be explained so simply. Howard's Theory At the first news of the thing, I had sought Dr. Howard to learn his own views of it, but he was not to be found at the university. And by the time I had met him the next day I, along with most of the world, had read the late editions of the newspaper in which he first startled the nations with his astounding explanation of the two cataclysms. He stated that he had studied closely the scene of the first cataclysm, and had derived therefrom a theory as to its cause which he believed was substantiated by the second occurrence. "No one who has considered carefully the Mannlertown catastrophe," he stated, "can credit for a moment the idea that it was caused by a meteor. Had a great meteor actually grazed the earth that night, the sky for a thousand miles would have flamed with its passing, even had it been able to pass out of earth's grip after entering it, which is an incredible hypothesis. "The cataclysm at Mannlertown was not caused by a meteor, but by some vast scoop-like object that was drawn across several miles of the earth's surface with immense speed and in that way gouged out the great trench in the earth. This second cataclysm in Finland was obviously caused in the same way, there being no appearance of a meteor in the sky. The huge scoop of which I speak was actually seen in the second case by the Finnish herder whose story has been little credited. But the very wildness of which is almost a guarantee of its truth, especially coming from such an unimaginative person.