At any moment they would reach the rarer limits of the earth's atmosphere, only 200 kilometres away. Then everyone beheld, as it were, a vast conflagration, kindled over the whojle extent of the horizon, throwing sky ward little violet flames. Never before had the earth been bathed in such a light, wbioh at first seemed to be colourless, emitting lightning flashes from its pale and was depths. The drynesa of the air, hot as the breath of a furnace, became intolerable, and a horrible odour of sulphur, probably due to the super-electrified zone, poisoned the atmosphere. Everyone believed his last hour was at hand. " THE EABTH IS ON PIES ! " A terrible cry dominated every other sound. The earth is on fire! The earth is on fire! Indeed, the entire horizon was now illuminated by a ring of bluish flame, surrounding the earth like the flames of a funeral pile. This, as had been predicted, { was the carbonic-oxide, whose combustion in the air produced carbonic-anhydride. Suddenly, as the terrified spectator gazed Bilent and awe -struck, holding his very breath in a stupor of fear, the vault of heaven seemed rent asunder from zenith to horizon, and from this yawning chasm, » as from an enormous mouth, was vomited forth jets of dazzling greenish flame, enveloping the earth in a glare so blinding, that all who had not already sought shelter, men and women, the old and the young, the bold as well as the timid, all rushed with the impetuosity of an avalanche to the cellarways, already choked with people. Many were crushed tojdeath, or aucaumbad to apoplexy, aneurismal ruptures, and wild delirium resulting in brain fever. HOW THE BARTH ESCAPED. Although, at the instant of collision, the greater part of the hemisphere on the aids of the comet had been affected by the constricting dryness, the suffocating heat and the poisonous sulphurous odours,** well as by deadening stupor, due to the resistance encountered by the comet in traversing the atmosphere, the supersatu ration of the ozone with electricity, and the mixture of nitrogen protoxide with the upper air, the other hemisphere had we perienced no other disturbance than that whioh followed inevitably from the del* troyed atmospheric* equilibrium. Fortu nately, the comet had only skimmed the earth, and the shock had not been central. Doubtless, also, the attraction of the cacth



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