The Poison Belt - Professor Challenger #2 by Arthur Conan Doyle

Challenger sends telegrams asking his three companions from The Lost World - Edward Malone, Lord John Roxton, and Professor Summerlee - to join him at his home outside of London. The cryptic telegrams also instruct each of them to bring a tank of oxygen. When they arrive they are ushered into a sealed room, along with Challenger and his wife. In the course of his research, Challenger has predicted that the Earth is about to come into contact with a belt of poisonous ether, which will, based on its effect on the people of Sumatra earlier in the day, cause the end of humanity.  The five of them wait out the Earth's passage through the band as they watch the world outside die, and machines run amok. Published in 1913.

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