11 - Omega - The Last Days of the World by Camille Flammarion

Dive into Omega The Last Days of the World, a captivating science fiction novel written by Camille Flammarion in 1894. Set in the 25th century, this thought-provoking tale explores the impending threat of a carbonic-oxide comet on a collision course with Earth. Through its narrative, the novel delves into the philosophical and political ramifications of humanity facing its potential end. (Summary by Wikipedia)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section eleven of Omeaga The Last Days of the World.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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visit LibriVox dot org. Omeager The Last Days of the

(00:21):
World by Camere Flammarion, Part two, Chapter two. About the
one hundredth century of the Christian era, all resemblance between
the human race and monkeys had disappeared. The nervous sensibility
of man had become intensified to a marvelous degree. The

(00:44):
sense of sight, of hearing, of smell, of touch, and
of taste had gradually acquired a delicacy far exceeding that
of their earlier and grosser manifestations. Through the study of
the electrical properties of living organisms, a seventh sense, the

(01:06):
electric sense, was created outright, so to speak, and everyone
possessed the power of attracting and repelling both living and
inert matter, to a degree depending upon the temperament of
the individual. But by far the most important of all
the senses, the one which played the greatest role in

(01:30):
men's relation to each other, was the eighth, the psychic sense,
by which communication at a distance became possible. A glimpse
has been had of two other senses also, but their
development had been arrested from the very outset. The first

(01:50):
had to do with the visibility of the ultra violet rays,
so sensitive to chemical tests but wholly invisible to the
human eye. Experiments made in this direction has resulted in
the acquisition of no new power, and had considerably impaired
those previously enjoyed. The second was the sense of orientation,

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but every effort made to develop it had proved a failure,
notwithstanding the attempt to make use of the results of
researchers in terrestrial magnetism. For some time past, the offspring
of the once titled and aristocratic classes of society had
formed a sickly and feeble race, and the governing body

(02:41):
was recruited from among the more virile members of the
lower class, who, however, were in their turn soon enervated
by a worldly life. Subsequently, marriages were regulated on established
principles of selection and heredity. The development of man's intellectual

(03:03):
faculties and the cultivation of psychical science had wrought great
changes in humanity. Latent faculties of the soul had been discovered.
Faculties which had remained dormant for perhaps a million years
during the earlier reign of the grosser instincts, and in proportion,

(03:26):
as food based upon chemical principles was substituted for the
coarse nourishment which had prevailed for so long a time,
these faculties came to light and underwent a brilliant development.
As a mental operation, thought became a different thing from
what it now is. Mind acted readily upon mind at

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a distance, by virtue of a transcendental magnetism of which
even children knew how to avail themselves. The first inter
astral communication was with the planet Mars, and the second
with Venus, the latter being maintained to the end of
the world. The former was interrupted by the death of

(04:15):
the inhabitants of Mars, whereas intercourse with Jupiter was only
just beginning. As the human race neared its own end,
a rigid application of the principles of selection in the
formation of marriages had resulted in a really new race,
resembling ours in organic form, but possessing wholly different intellectual powers.

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For the once barbarous and often blind methods of medicine
and even of surgery had been substituted by those derived
from a knowledge of hypnotic, magnetic and psychic forces, and
telepathy had become a great and fruitful scien. Simultaneously with man,

(05:04):
the planet also had been transformed. Industry had produced mighty
but ephemeral results. In the twenty fifth century, whose events
we have just described, Paris had been for a long
time a seaport, and electric ships from the Atlantic and
from the Pacific by the Isthmus of Panama arrived at

(05:27):
the keys of the Abbey of Saint Denis, beyond which
the great capital extended far to the north. The passage
from the Abbey of Saint Denis to the port of
London was made in a few hours, and many travelers
availed themselves of this route in preference to the regular

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air route. The tunnel and the viaduct over the Channel
outside of Paris. The same activity reigned for in the
twenty fifth century. So the canal uniting the Mediterranean with
the Atlantic had been completed, and the long detour by

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way of the Straits of Gibraltar had been abandoned. And
on the other hand, a metallic tube for carriages driven
by compressed air united the Iberian Republic formerly Spain and
Portugal with western Algeria formerly Morocco. Paris and Chicago then

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had nine million inhabitants. London ten, New York twelve. Paris,
continuing its growth toward the west from century to century,
now extended from the confluence of the Marne beyond Saint Germain.
All great cities had grown at the expense of the country.

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Agricultural products were manufactured by electricity. Hydrogen was extracted from
sea water. The energy of waterfalls and tides were utilized
for lighting purposes at a distance. The solar rays stored
in summer were distributed in winter, and the seasons had

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almost disappeared, especially since the introduction of heat wells, which
brought to the surface of the soil the seemingly inexhaustible
heat of the Earth's interior. But what is the twenty
fifth century in comparison with the thirtieth, the fortieth, the hundredth.

(07:33):
Every one knows the legend of the Arab of Caswani,
as related by a traveler of the thirteenth century, who
at that time, moreover, had no idea of the duration
of the epochs of nature. Passing one day, he said
by a very ancient and very populous city. I asked

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one of its inhabitants how long a time it had
been found? Truly, he replied, it is a powerful city,
but we do not know how long it has existed,
and our ancestors are as ignorant upon this subject as we.
Five centuries later I passed by the same spot and

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could perceive no trace of the city. I asked a
peasant who was gathering herbs on its former site how
long it had been destroyed? Of a truth, he replied,
that is a strange question. This field has always been
what it now is. But was there not formerly a

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splendid city here? I asked, never, he answered, at least
so far as we can judge from what we have seen,
and our fathers have never told us of any such thing.
On my return five hundred years later to the same place,
I found it occupied by the sea. On the shore

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stood a group of fishermen, of whom I asked, at
what period the land had been covered by the ocean?
Is that question worthy of a man like you? They replied,
This spot has always been such as you see it today.
At the end of five hundred years, I returned again,

(09:21):
and the sea had disappeared. I inquired of a solitary
man whom I encountered when this change had taken place,
and he gave me the same reply. Finally, after an
equal lapse of time, I returned once more to find
a flourishing city, more populous and richer in monuments than

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that which I had at first visited. And when I
sought information as to its origin, its inhabitants replied, the
date of its foundation is lost in antiquity. We do
not know how long it has existed, and our fathers
knew no more of this than we do. How this

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fable illustrates the brevity of human memory and the narrowness
of our horizons in time as well as in space.
We think that the Earth has always been what it
now is, we conceive with difficulty of the secular changes
through which it has passed. The vastness of these periods

(10:26):
overwhelms us. As in astronomy, we are overwhelmed by the
vast distances of space. The time had come when Paris
had ceased to be the capital of the world. After
the fusion of the United States of Europe into a
single confederation, the Russian Republic from Saint Petersburg to Constantinople

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had formed a sort of barrier against the invasion of
the Chinese, who had already established populous cities on the
shores of the Caspian Seas. The nations of the past
having disappeared before the march of progress, and the nationalities
of France, England, Germany, Italy and Spain having for the

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same reason passed away. Communication between the east and West,
between Europe and America had become more and more easy,
and the sea being no longer an obstacle to the
march of humanity free now as the Sun, the new
territory of the vast continent of America had been preferred

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by industrial enterprise to the exhausted lands of Western Europe,
and already in the twenty fifth century, the center of
civilization was located on the shores of Lake Michigan, in
the new Athens of nine million inhabitants, rivaling Paris. Thereafter,

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the elegant French capital had followed the example of its predecessors, Rome, Athens, Memphis, Thebes,
Ninevah and Babylon. The wealth, the resources of every kind
the great attractions were elsewhere in Spain, Italy and France,

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gradually abandoned by their inhabitants. Solitude spread slowly over the
ruins of former cities. Lisbon had disappeared, destroyed by the sea. Madrid, Rome,
Naples and Florence were in ruins. A little later, Paris,
Leon and Marseilles were overtaken by the same fate. Human

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types and languages had undergone such transformations that it would
have been impossible for an ethnologist or a linguist to
discover anything belonging to the past. For a long time,
neither Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, English, nor German had been spoken.

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Europe had migrated beyond the Atlantic, and Asia had invaded Europe.
The Chinese, to the number of a thousand million, had
spread over Western Europe. Mingling with the Anglo Saxon race.
They formed, in some measure a new one. Their principal
capital stretched like an endless street along each side of

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the canal from Bordeaux to Toulouse and Narbonne. The causes
which led to the foundation of Lutetia on an island
in the Seine, which had raised this city of the
Parisians to the zenith of its power in the twenty
fourth century, were no longer operative, and Paris had disappeared

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simultaneously with the causes to which it owed its origin
and splendor. Commerce had taken possession of the Mediterranean and
the Great Oceanic Highways, and the Iberian Canal had become
the emporium of the world. The littoral of the south
and west of ancient France had been protected by dikes

(14:15):
against the invasion of the sea, but owing to the
increase of population in the south and southwest, the north
and northwest had been neglected, and the slow and continual
subsidence of this region observed ever since the time of Caesar,
had reduced its level below that of the sea, and

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as the channel was ever widening and the cliffs between
Cape Helda and Havre were being worn away by the
action of the sea, the Dutch dikes had been abandoned
to the ocean, which had invaded the Netherlands, Belgium and
northern France. Amsterdam, Utelecht, rotterdam Antwerp, Versailles, Lele, Amions and

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Ruon had sunk below the water and ships floated above
their sea covered ruins. Paris itself finally abandoned in the
sixtieth century when the sea had surrounded it as it
now does. Haavre was in the eighty fifth century covered
with water to the height of the towers of Notre

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Dame and all that memorable plane where were wrought out
During so many years the most brilliant of the world
civilizations were swept by angry waves. At this point, the
author provides the following extended footnote. In the nineteenth century,

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researchers in natural history had revealed the fact that secular
vertical oscillations vary with the locality, were taking place in
the Earth's crust, and had proved that from prehistoric times
the soil of western and southern France had been slowly
sinking and the sea slowly gaining upon the land one

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after another. The islands of Jersey, of Minchia, of Chausey,
of Ecrehue, of Sazumbrie, of Mont Saint Michel had been
detached from the continent by the sea. The cities of
eyes Hellion, Tomau, Portsmueure, Harbor, San Louis, monny Bourgneuf, La Fellette,

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Pellerl and Nazadou had been buried beneath its waves, and
the Amorican Peninsula had slowly retreated before the advancing waters.
The hour of this invasion by the sea had struck
from century to century. Also for Herbevia to the west

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of NaNs, for Sandanis Scheftical, to the north of Havre,
for sonnety End de Poulu, and for Gardoin to the
north of doll for to Lent to the west of Breast.
More than eighty habitable cities of Holland had been submerged
in the eleventh century, et cetera, et cetera. In other

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regions the reverse had taken place and the sea had retired.
But to the north and west of Paris, this double
action of subsidence of the land and the wearing away
of the shores had in less than seven thousand years
made Paris accessible to ships of the greatest tonnage. End

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of footnote. As in the case of languages, ideas, customs,
and laws, so also the manner of reckoning time had changed.
It was still reckoned by years and centuries, but the
Christian era had been discarded, as also the holy days

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of the calendar, and the eras of the Mussulman, Jewish,
Chinese and African chronologies. There was now a single calendar
for the entire race, composed of twelve months, divided into
four equal trimesters of three months of thirty, one, thirty

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and thirty days, each trimester containing exactly thirteen weeks. New
Year's Day was a fate day and was not reckoned
in with the year. Every bisextile year there were two.
The week had been retained. Every year commenced on the

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same day, Monday, and the same dates always corresponded to
the same days of the week. The year began with
the vernal equinox. All over the world the era, a
purely astronomical division of time, began with the coincidence of
the December solstice with Perihelion and was renewed every twenty

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five thousand, seven hundred and sixty five years. This rational
method had succeeded the fantastic divisions of time formerly in use.
The geographical features of France, of Europe, and of the
entire world had become modified from century to century. Seas

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had replaced continents, and new deposits at the bottom of
the ocean covered the vanished ages, forming new geological strata. Elsewhere,
continents had taken the place of seas at the mouth
of the Rhone, for example, where the dry land had
already encroached upon the sea from Als to the Littoral,

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the continent gained to the south. In Italy, the deposits
of the po had continued to gain upon the Adriatic,
as those of the Nile, the Tiber and other rivers
of later origin had gained upon the Mediterranean, and in
other places the dunes had increased by various amounts. The

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domain of the dry land, the contours of seas and
continents had so changed that it would have been absolutely
impossible to make out the ancient geographical maps of history.
The historian of nature does not deal with periods of
five centuries, like the Arab of the thirteenth century mentioned

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in the legend related a moment Ago. Ten times this
period would scarcely suffice to modify sensibly the configuration of
the land. For five thousand years are but a ripple
on the ocean of time. It is by tens of
thousands of years that one must reckon if one would

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see continents sink below the level of seas, and new
territories emerging into the sunlight as the result of the
secular changes in the level of the Earth's crust, whose
thickness and density varies from place to place, and whose
weight resting upon the still plastic and mobile interior, causes

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vast areas to oscillate. A slight disturbance of the equilibrium,
an insignificant dip of the scales, a change of less
than one hundred meters, often in the length of the
Earth's diameter of twelve thousand kilometers, is sufficient to transform
the surface of the world. And if we examine the

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ensemble of the history of the Earth by periods of
one hundred thousand years, for example, we see that in
ten of these great epochs, that is, in million years,
the surface of the globe has been many times transformed.
If we advance into the future a period of one

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or two million years, we witness a vast flux and
reflux of life and things. How many times in this
period of ten or twenty thousand centuries, How many times
have the waves of the sea covered the former dwelling
places of man? How many times the Earth has emerged anew,

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fresh and regenerated from the abysses of the ocean. In
primitive times, when the still warm and liquid planet was
covered only by a thin shell cooling on the surface
of the burning ocean within These changes took place briskly
by sudden breaking down of natural barriers, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions,

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and the uprising of mountain ranges. Later, as this superficial
crust grew thicker and became consolidated, these transformations were more gradual.
The slow contraction of the earth had led to the
formation of hollow spaces within the solid envelope, to the

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falling in of portions of this envelope upon the liquid nucleus,
and finally to oscillating movements which had changed the profile
of the continents. Later, still insensible modifications had been produced
by external agents. On the one hand, the rivers constantly

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carrying to their mouths the debris of the mountains had
filled up the depths of the sea and slowly increased
the area of the dry land, making in time inland
cities of ancient sea ports. And on the other hand,
the action of the waves and of storms constantly eating

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away the she had increased the area of the ocean
at the expense of the dry land ceaselessly. The geographical
configuration of the shore had changed. For the historian our
planet had become another world. Everything had changed continents, seas, shores, races, languages, customs,

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body and mind, sentiments, ideas, everything. France beneath the waves,
the bottom of the Atlantic, in the light of the sun,
a portion of the United States gone, a continent in
the place of Oceanica, China submerged death. Where was life

(24:47):
and life? Where was death? And everywhere sunk into eternal oblivion,
all which had once constituted the glory and greatness of nations.
If to day one of a should em great to Mars,
he would find himself more at home than if after
the lapse of these future ages he should return to

(25:08):
the Earth. End of Chapter two. Recording by Steve Chalvers, Norwich, England,