Then, Cosmo had on his side the whole force of that curious tendency of
the human mind which habitually gravitates toward whatever is
extraordinary, revolutionary, and mysterious.

But a yet greater difficulty arose. Mention has been made of the strange
bulletin from the Mount McKinley observatory. That had been incautiously
sent out to the public by a thoughtless observer, who was more intent
upon describing a singular phenomenon than upon considering its possible
effect on the popular imagination. He had immediately received an
expostulatory dispatch from headquarters which henceforth shut his
mouth--but he had told the simple truth, and how embarrassing that was
became evident when, on the very table around which the savants were now
assembled, three dispatches were laid in quick succession from the great
observatories of Mount Hekla, Iceland, the North Cape, and Kamchatka,
all corroborating the statement of the Mount McKinley observer, that an
inexplicable veiling of faint stars had manifested itself in the boreal
quarter of the sky.

When the president read these dispatches--which the senders had taken
the precaution to mark "confidential"--the members of the council looked
at one another with no little dismay. Here was the most unprejudiced
corroboration of Cosmo Versal's assertion that the great nebula was
already within the range of observation. How could they dispute such
testimony, and what were they to make of it?

Two or three of the members began to be shaken in their convictions.

"Upon my word," exclaimed Professor Alexander Jones, "but this is very
curious! And suppose the fellow should be right, after all?"