These spinning, boiling bomb centres would
shift or break unexpectedly into new regions, great fragments of earth
or drain or masonry suddenly caught by a jet of disruptive force might
come flying by the explorer's head, or the ground yawn a fiery grave
beneath his feet. Few who adventured into these areas of destruction
and survived attempted any repetition of their experiences. There are
stories of puffs of luminous, radio-active vapour drifting sometimes
scores of miles from the bomb centre and killing and scorching all they
overtook. And the first conflagrations from the Paris centre spread
westward half-way to the sea.
Moreover, the air in this infernal inner circle of red-lit ruins had a
peculiar dryness and a blistering quality, so that it set up a soreness
of the skin and lungs that was very difficult to heal....
Such was the last state of Paris, and such on a larger scale was the
condition of affairs in Chicago, and the same fate had overtaken Berlin,
Moscow, Tokio, the eastern half of London, Toulon, Kiel, and two hundred
and eighteen other centres of population or armament. Each was a flaming
centre of radiant destruction that only time could quench, that indeed
in many instances time has still to quench. To this day, though indeed
with a constantly diminishing uproar and vigour, these explosions
continue.
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