xxix THE FINAL CATASTROPHE 153 



ulcer taints its whole vicinity. The nearer the 

 part is to the soil that is being liquefied, the more 

 quickly will it be washed off, dissolved, and finally 

 carried away. The rock will everywhere gape in 

 fissures, and the fresh supplies of water will leap 

 down into the gulfs, and unite in forming one great 

 sea. There will be no Adriatic any longer, no strait 

 in the Sicilian Sea, no Charybdis, no Scylla. All 

 the fabulous dangers will be swallowed up in the 

 new sea ; the existing Ocean which surrounds the 

 fringes of the earth will come into the centre. 



Nor will this be all. As if this were not enough, 

 winter will seize upon months that are not his, 

 summer will be stopped, the heat of every heavenly 

 body that dries up earth's moisture will be quenched 

 and cease. All these names will be obliterated 

 Caspian and Red Sea, Ambracian and Cretan Gulfs, 

 the Pontus and the Propontis. All distinctions will 

 disappear. All will be mixed up which nature 

 has now arranged in its several parts. Nor will walls 

 and battlements afford protection to any. Temples 

 will not save their worshippers, nor citadels their 

 refugees. The wave will anticipate the fugitives, 

 and sweep them down from their very strong- 

 hold. Some enemies will hasten from the west, 

 others from the east. A single day will see the 

 burial of all mankind. All that the long forbearance 

 of fortune has produced, all that has been reared to 

 eminence, all that is famous and all that is beautiful, 

 great thrones, great nations all will descend into 

 the one abyss, will be overthrown in one hour. 



