ection>Garrett P. Serviss
The Second Deluge
(Dystopian Novel)
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2018 OK Publishing
ISBN 978-80-272-4767-7
Table of Contents
Chapter III. The First Drops of the Deluge
Chapter IV. The World Swept with Terror
Chapter VI. Selecting the Flower of Mankind
Chapter VII. The Waters Begin to Rise
Chapter VIII. Storming the Ark
Chapter IX. The Company of the Reprieved
Chapter X. The Last Day of New York
Chapter XI. "A Billion for a Share"
Chapter XII. The Submergence of the Old World
Chapter XIII. Strange Freaks of the Nebula
Chapter XIV. The Escape of the President
Chapter XV. Professor Pludder's Device
Chapter XVI. Mutiny in the Ark
Chapter XVIII. Navigating Over Drowned Europe
Chapter XIX. To Paris Under the Sea
Chapter XX. The Adventures in Colorado
Chapter XXI. "The Father of Horror"
Chapter XXII. The Terrible Nucleus Arrives
Chapter XXIII. Robbing the Crown of the World
Chapter XXIV. The Frenchman's New Scheme
Chapter XXV. New York in Her Ocean Tomb
Foreword
What is here set down is the fruit of long and careful research among disjointed records left by survivors of the terrible events described. The writer wishes frankly to say that, in some instances, he has followed the course which all historians are compelled to take by using his imagination to round out the picture. But he is able conscientiously to declare that in the substance of his narrative, as well as in every detail which is specifically described, he has followed faithfully the accounts of eyewitnesses, or of those who were in a position to know the truth of what they related.
Chapter I.
Cosmo Versál
An undersized, lean, wizen-faced man, with an immense bald head, as round and smooth and shining as a giant soap-bubble, and a pair of beady black eyes, set close together, so that he resembled a gnome of amazing brain capacity and prodigious power of concentration, sat bent over a writing desk with a huge sheet of cardboard before him, on which he was swiftly drawing geometrical and trigonometrical figures. Compasses, T-squares, rulers, protractors, and ellipsographs obeyed the touch of his fingers as if inspired with life.
The room around him was a jungle of terrestrial and celestial globes, chemists' retorts, tubes, pipes, and all the indescribable apparatus that modern science has invented, and which, to the uninitiated, seems as incomprehensible as the ancient paraphernalia of alchemists and astrologers. The walls were lined with book shelves, and adorned along the upper portions with the most extraordinary photographs and drawings. Even the ceiling was covered with charts, some representing the sky, while many others were geological and topographical pictures of the face of the earth.
Beside the drawing-board lay a pad of paper, and occasionally the little man nervously turned to this, and, grasping a long pencil, made elaborate calculations, covering the paper with a sprinkling of mathematical symbols that looked like magnified animalcula. While he worked,
