Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/427

Rh in fact, some of his race had been able to prove that it occupied at least three times as long as any one of those just described.

(e.) It commenced by a motion very like that to which space itself had been submitted at the end of each avatar, finishing with a smash, and followed by a period of repose of about ten thousand years. It however differed from those avatars inasmuch as there was no inversion of the position of cellar and attic.

(f.) A new form of shaking of universal solid space now arose, much more frequent but less destructive than the former. It occurred about once in two years, and was repeated many hundred thousand times.

(g.) Again a period exactly similar to that recorded in (e) occurred.

(h.) This was followed by a long series of movements of all solidity, approaching, as far as I could understand it, to an oscillating or wave motion. This continued without intermission during exactly three of those cycles whose precise number had been preserved.

(i.) During the whole of this period there was a great destruction of the race. A universal sickness arose and continued more or less, so that multitudes actually perished, and those who escaped could scarcely carry on the ordinary calculations necessary for their existence.

(j.) Another period followed, ending with a smash excessively like (e).

(k.) Then followed a period of shaking like that in (f).

(l.) Then another smash like (e).

(m.) Period of long repose.

After this came a long state of absolute rest.

Such was the dawn of the most terrible, as well as the