No. III. — A Warm Summer. — A Million Miles an Hour.

Observer, Volume 5, Issue 116, 2 December 1882, Page 184

No. 111. — A Warm Summer. — A Million Miles an Hour.

January 16, 1883. The Comet is half-way on its journey back to the sun, and there can be no doubt that when it reaches its perihelion it will collide. The heat is increasing daily ; thermometer now 120 in the shade, and water boils in the sun. The Union Company's steamers are all engaged in the carriage of ice from the South Pole, to make life supportable for the few thousand survivors in Auckland. The average death-rate since Ist January has been 1000 per day. Dried shark is a drug in the market on account of the hundreds fresh roasted which line the shores of the harbour. Yesterday, fifty-seven larrikins were boiled to death in the City Baths — the heat was so Strong, The population of the city is how confined to the stone, brick, and concrete buildings, which have been fitted up with refrigerators. The Comet is now travelling at the rate of a million miles an hour towards the sun, or nearly 20,000 miles a minute. The final catastrophe cannot be delayed more than two weeks. All work in the city is done by night, every place being lighted by electricity. Roth's hot baths have been closed. The AngloIsrael Association has also given up business, being convinced of the impossibility of the Jews reaching Palestine before the general " bust up" takes place. This issue of the " Trumpet " is printed in a large refrigerating chamber, just erected at a heavy outlay of " new capital."