Note 1 — Chapter VII

Daily the unexplained thickening of the atmosphere was growing more noticeable. Daily the air was becoming heavier, more sluggish, more humid, and hotter. Thunder storms of greater violence than ever had become of daily occurrence in widely scattered sections of the earth. Droughts in some regions, and floods in others, had scarred the surface of the planet. Temperatures running well into the hundreds were now common in districts where eighty had been considered hot. Some sections, indeed, had become uninhabitable.

By the first of August, the deaths ascribed to the heat in the great cities of the eastern United States had risen to a daily average of scores of thousands. Mass migrations were in progress from tropical and sub-tropical regions—by every obtainable device, by liner, freighter and tugboat, by private car, truck and airplane, the inhabitants of South and Central America were streaming toward the temperate and polar regions. In India, scores of millions were flocking into the Himalayas; in Africa, the population was perishing like ants, and no count of the mortality was even attempted; in the South Seas the customary trade winds did not blow, and the waters became too warm for bathing. For the first time in history the Antarctic Continent, its glaciers beginning to melt, offered promise of becoming habitable; while men of daring laid plans to establish winter homes in Labrador and Greenland. Meanwhile vast once-verdant sections of America, Asia and Europe had been seared to a leafless brown.—Ed.