It was evident that the race was irrevocably doomed. Science had disappeared with scientists, art with artists, and the survivors lived only upon the past. The heart knew no more hope, the spirit no ambition. The light was in the past; the future was an eternal night. All was over. The glories of days gone by had forever vanished. If, in preceding centuries, some traveller, wandering in these solitudes, thought he had rediscovered the sites of Paris, Rome, or the brilliant capitals which had succeeded them, he was the victim of his own imagination; for these sites had not existed for millions of years, having been swept away by the waters of the sea. Vague traditions had floated down through the ages, thanks to the printing-press and the recorders of the great events of history; but even these traditions were uncertain and often false. For, as to Paris, the annals of history contained only some references to a maritime Paris; of its existence as the capital of France for thousands of years, there was no trace nor memory. The names which to us seem immortal, Confucius, Plato, Mahomet, Alexander, Cæsar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon, had perished and were forgotten. Art had, indeed, preserved noble memories; but these memories did not extend as far back as the infancy of humanity, and reached only a few million years into the past. Omegar lingered in an ancient gallery of pictures, bequeathed by former centuries, and contemplated the great cities which had disappeared. Only one of these pictures related to what had once been Europe, and was a view of Paris, consisting of a promontory projecting into the sea, crowned by an astronomical temple and gay with helicopterons circling above the lofty towers of its terraces. Immense ships were plowing the sea. This classic Paris was the Paris of the one hundred and seventieth century of the Christian era, corresponding to the one hundred and fifty-seventh of the astronomical era—the Paris which existed immediately prior to the final submergence of the land. Even its name had changed; for words change like persons and things. Nearby, other pictures portrayed the great but less ancient cities which had risen in America, Australia, Asia, and afterwards upon the continents which had emerged from the ocean. And so this museum of the past recalled in succession the passing pomps of humanity down to the end. [Illustration: “ALL DAY LONG HE WANDERED THROUGH THE VAST GALLERIES.” ]