and encroached on the land in others. At last, the comet began to recede; the fight was over; the earth gradually regained its normal speed, and in about three months it was found to have made up its lost diurnal velocity, and began to accomplish its revolution in twenty-four hours by the chronometers. But what extraordinary changes had taken place. There was not a single city standing. It was found that the British Channel now occupied the latitude of the south of France; Spain was where north Africa used to be; the Arctic Ocean was free from ice; and there was now a navigable water passage around the north of Canada. Fresh reports were coming in daily from survivors by the cables that had escaped injury. Australia was now hundreds of miles further south, and its southern portion was visited by snow storms. Astronomers were busy taking observations all over the world; and it was proved beyond a doubt that owing to the attraction of the comet the earth's axis had permanently shifted. The ice-clad northern seas and lands were free
