so, for there came a day when the earth received a sudden and awful shock.
After it had passed, people looked at each other wonderingly to find
themselves alive, and began congratulating each other, thinking the worst
was over. But the dreadful anxiety returned when, after some hours, the
moon again appeared, a little tardy this time, but nearer and more
threatening than ever. The news was afterwards brought that it had struck
the high mountain peaks of Central Asia, tearing down their sides with the
power of a thousand glaciers and filling the valleys below with ruin.

It was now felt that the end must soon come, and this was true, for at the
earth's very next revolution the tired and feeble satellite, once the
queen of the sky and the poet's glory, scraped across the continent of
South America, received the death blow in collision with the Andes,
careened, and fell at last into the South Pacific Ocean. The shock given
to the earth was tremendous, but no other result was manifest except that
the huge mass displaced water enough to submerge many islands and to
reconstruct the shore lines of every continent. There was untold loss of
life and property, of course, but it is astonishing how easily those who
were left alive accepted the new state of things, when it was found that
the staid earth, in spite of the enormous wart on her side, was making her
daily revolution almost with her accustomed regularity.

The lovers of science, however, were by no means indifferent to the new-
comer. To be able at last to solve all the problems of the constitution
and geography of the moon was enough to fill them with the greatest
enthusiasm. But, while thousands were ready to investigate the mysterious
visitor, one great difficulty stood in the way of all progress. It seemed
impossible to get a foothold on the surface. The great globe rose from the
waves on all sides at such an angle on account of its shape that a
lodgment could not easily be made. Ships sailed under the overhanging