The waning of a world by W. Elwyn Backus

ovithanos

June 1

Out of this grew the Palmer-Margard controversy which attracted such wide-spread interest. Profusely illustrated magazine articles abounded on the subject, while Sunday supplements, with imagination rampant, were in their glory. The upshot of this literary duel was the publication of a volume by Professor L. R. Margard, F. R. S., etc., in critical review of his contemporary's deductions.

Public opinion was divided into two camps, each with its chosen champion. The explanation of certain geographical features on a planet some thirty-five million miles away absorbed more of the fickle public's attention for the moment than the outrageous price of a pound of sugar or a dozen of eggs.

In spite of the tax upon credulity which Professor Palmer's theories demanded, they inspired belief among the majority. Perhaps this is because most of us are gifted with an over-supply of imagination; and the Palmer theories appealed strongly to the imagination.

But the majority is not always right; rather the contrary, all of which Professor Margard promptly pointed out. "A challenge to the thinking world," he branded the Palmer theories. To which the eminent Professor Bernard Palmer, A.B., LL. D., retaliated that even Columbus was ridiculed. No doubt, he stated, an astronomer on Mars would have equal difficulty in convincing a Martian public of the possible existence of inhabitants on our earth.

Waldo Elwyn "Bill" Backus was the son of a chemist and born in Newport, Kentucky, on March 7, 1892. He was educated in public schools in Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Even as a teenager, the young author was going by "W. Elwyn Backus," the name under which his stories for Weird Tales appeared. In retirement, Backus lived in Coral Gables, Florida, home of Tropical Park horse race track. He died in that city on the last day of the 1970s, December 31, 1979.

In Public Domain
First Published 1925
Ovi eBook Publishing 2024