END-OF-WORLD SCARE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVII, Issue 168, 15 June 1927, Page 13

END-OF-WORLD SCARE.

A FRENCHMAN’S PROPHECY THE COMET PONS WINNECKE. A foolish scare has been aroused by tlu> prophecy of a Frenchman that Pons Winnocke, on© of the 20 periodic comets that flash into our field of vision and disapepar again into spaco on their eternal journey about the central sun, is to crash into the earth and demolish it. The prophecy is believed in by a large number of people, who are becoming needlessly alarmed as tiro tim© draws near for this fiery monster to flash across the dome p.f our night sky. This is not the first tim© the coming of a comet has been awaited with apprehension. Portents in tire sky, most of all comets, have always inspired dread and terror. Not so long ago astronomers believed that if one of tlics© bodies crashed into the earth oar planet would be annihiliated. It is now- known that these bodies are .pjaseous, and The earth could pass through them without their injuring it. DO THEY AFFECT US.

But (says an exchange) superstition dies hard. There are still many people who believe comets play a large part in human affairs. For instance, when Halley’s famous comet first appeared it so happened that the Turks hid just captured Constantinople. The comet was blamed. People prayed to be saved from “the devil, the Turk, and the comet.” Comets were regarded as signs in ancient times. In Scandanavia it was firmly believed that comets appeared when the King had committed some grave sin. Kings used to be dethroned on the word of soothsayers who interpreted the moaning of the flashing comet. The coming of scientific astronomy has not dealt a death blow to the strange superstitions which follow the comet in its dazzling flight. In France, for example, wine-grow-ers will tell you the vintages 0f,,, 1811 and 1858 are unique because, in those years, our globe passed 'through the tails of comets. The ozones of these comets made the grapes better than those of any other year, they say. One of the most alarming prophecies of the earth’s destruction caused tremendous excitement and alarm in the United States in 1922. Professor Porta, of Michigan University, predicted the end of the world for December, 1924. Ho based this belief on the malign effect- upon the earth of the giant sun spots. Another eml-of-the-world scare occurred in 1923, when Dr. George Harding, brother of the late President Harding, predicted that the world would end before the conclusion of liis brother’s term as President of the United States.

One of the greatest of all world scares was that which convulsed all Christendom on the eve of that year 1000 A.D. The first day of that year nas to usher in the Day of Judgment. People flocked to the churches, men immured themselves in monastries, women in nunneries, there was prayer and repentance. The day came and went. The old earth rolled on and fear passed. Rather less than two centuries ago. Nicolas de Cusa similarly announced the ond of all things.x De Cusa was a cardinal, and his prophecy accordingly carried weight. His argument, too, was plausible. Briefly, he said the Flood occurred on the 34tli Jubilee of the Creation; therefore the world would end on the 34th jubileo of Christianity. It did not.

There have been many similar scares, some based on a fallacious interpretation of the Scriptures; other upon the appearance of strange celestial bodies. The voice of accredited science is more comforting. According to Professor Nordmann, the French scientist, the earth is good for another ten thousand million years; Professor Hinders Petrie gives it almost as long a lease of life.