I prolonged my investigations without becoming visible, taking note of numberless facts of interest which will ever be a source of pleasure and value to me.  At length, however, I concluded to take advantage of a privilege and power I possessed and, becoming visible, I entered a quiet room in the presence of a very distinguished man.  He was by far the most highly educated person on the Moon.

I was more surprised than he, for I expected that he would be greatly agitated at my unaccountable appearance.  Imagine my surprise when he sat motionless, gazing firmly into my face which to him was out of harmony with all ideas of correct form.

I was the first to speak, and although he had manifested outwardly such self possession, I soon learned that it was a mere show of stoicism in the presence of one whom he thought to be a spirit.  In an incredibly short time we were on easy speaking terms and I was gaining the object of my visit.

Among the many things of interest that I learned from this famous character were facts concerning the history of the Moon.  According to the information he gave me, I figured that human life had existed on the Moon thousands of years before its appearance on the Earth.  Scientifically I could not account for this on any other ground than that the Moon, being a much smaller orb, cooled off sufficiently to sustain life on its surface long before any form of life could exist on our Earth.

The Moonities of the old era were a prosperous and progressive people, far outshining their successors who now occupy the sphere.  After making history for several thousand years, the human race had grown to one hundred million in numbers, and civilization had reached a surprising degree of perfection.

In those long-ago ages the Moon was a much more fertile garden than now.  Luxury and refinement were enjoyed by the favored sons of that period, and no one dreamed of the horrible fate that was to sweep practically the whole race into the regions of death.  My intelligent informer used excessive language in trying to picture the unequaled catastrophe that put an end to the old era.

My interest was unbounded, and with awed breath I continued listening as he described the cause of this great and terrible cataclysm.

“It all occurred about five thousand years ago,” he said.  “The Moon was shaken by subterraneous rumblings, followed by fiery ejections, covering a period of nearly one and one-half wagon-wheel revolutions.  Whole cities were ruined, fertile valleys covered and human life was almost annihilated.”

I knew what my informant meant by “one and one-half wagon-wheel revolutions.”  This would be a period of about forty days and nights of earthly time.  Do you wonder that my mind flew back to the forty days and nights of rain that destroyed, at one time, on our Earth, the whole human family, except the few who were saved in the ark?

“What are the evidences of this horrible world-ending?” I asked.