It rose
over America near the size of the moon, but blinding white to look
at, and HOT; and a breath of hot wind blew now with its
rising and gathering strength, and in Virginia, and Brazil, and
down the St. Lawrence valley, it shone intermittently through a
driving reek of thunder-clouds, flickering violet lightning,
and hail unprecedented. In Manitoba was a thaw and devastating
floods. And upon all the mountains of the earth the snow and ice
began to melt that night, and all the rivers coming out of high
country flowed thick and turbid, and soon--in their upper reaches
--with swirling trees and the bodies of beasts and men. They rose
steadily, steadily in the ghostly brilliance, and came trickling
over their banks at last, behind the flying population of their
valleys.
And along the coast of Argentina and up the South Atlantic the
tides were higher than had ever been in the memory of man, and the
storms drove the waters in many cases scores of miles inland,
drowning whole cities. And so great grew the heat during the night
that the rising of the sun was like the coming of a shadow. The
earthquakes began and grew until all down America from the Arctic
Circle to Cape Horn, hillsides were sliding, fissures were opening,
and houses and walls crumbling to destruction. The whole side of
Cotopaxi slipped out in one vast convulsion, and a tumult of lava
poured out so high and broad and swift and liquid that in one day
it reached the sea.
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