Page:Neuroomia.djvu/268

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256
NEUROOMIA: A NEW CONTINENT.

teeming with many forms of animal and vegetable life; they beheld beings with faces and limbs like themselves, but the size of mountains, and they thought the gigantic strangers looked down upon them with pity as they passed. Many of the animals were even larger than these inhabitants; as for the vegetation, it appeared like hanging forests some distance away from, but yet connected with, this wonderful planet.

They were not, however, allowed to view these things at their leisure, for the earthquakes continued. Portions of the earth's surface were hurled into air, followed by enormous masses of flames. The ocean heaved and tossed, encroached and receded, sometimes reaching the tops of the lower hills, then revealing whole tracts of its mud-covered bed, with the huge monsters that luxuriated therein. The only cities left were those built high up on the mountains or most elevated tablelands; and even these suffered, some of them having been wrecked by the earthquakes.

After a time there was a calm. The new planet kept on its course, getting farther and farther away till lost in space, from which it came. The moon, however, remained nearer the earth than formerly, and gave a stronger light. It was also