The surface of the earth is slowly but surely diminishing, says the scientists. All the landed portion will be submerged and the last man will be drowned. The ice is gradually accumulating at the North Pole and slowly melting away at the South. Eventually the earth’s centre of gravity will be crushed by the rush of movables that will quickly glide over its surface. There is a retarding medium in space causing a gradual loss in velocity in all of the planets. The earth, when her revolutions finally cease, will be drawn nearer and nearer to the sun until the last man will be literally roasted off the face of the earth. Beginning with the year 3000 A. D. humanity will commence to retrograde and by the end of the year 1,000,000 man will be no larger and have no more intelligence than a plant louse. In that event there will be no “last man,” remarks the St. Louis Republic. The sun’s fires will gradually burn out and the temperature cool; in consequence the earth’s glacial zones will enlarge, driving shivering humanity toward the equator. At least the habitable space will lessen to nothing and overcrowded humanity will be frozen in a heap.
Not exactly an optimisitc prognostication, is it?
The St. Louis Republic was active at least from 1888 to 1919, according to the St Louis Public Library. It was apparently quite influential, since a Google search returns numerous articles from it that have been posted on the web.
The Plant Louse is ‘any member of the approximately 2,000 species of the insect family Psyllidae (order Homoptera)’ according to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Here’s a picture.