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256 meridian for twenty-five hours. This difference gradually increased, until at the end of a month, it took thirty hours by the chronometer for the earth to make its diurnal revolution, and at last the period was increased to forty-eight hours. Baria and many other philosophers stated that the earth's velocity was being retarded by the attraction of the comet; there was evidently a terrible struggle for the mastery going on between it and the earth. It was a case of the mighty wrestling with the mighty; two giants as it were on the grip for life or death.

"The consternation was terrible. The atmosphere of the earth began to change, and a great plague fell upon the people of the cities, they could not breathe freely. They gradually died by thousands, and to make matters worse, earthquakes took place all over the world, and the surface of the earth cracked. Thousands of cities were levelled to the ground in one day—the people in them who had not died of what they called the plague were crushed beneath