The Poison Belt

The Poison Belt, a novella by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is remarkable in that we, with the central characters, are permitted to witness what seems to be a global apocalypse, while enduring only minimal emotional fall out. Professor Challenger urgently summons his fellow explorers (Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and reporter E.D.

• Malone) to a meeting.
• Oddly, he requires each to bring an oxygen cylinder with him.

• To Professor Challenger it is clear that no animal or human life can possibly survive this encounter.
• Shutting themselves tightly up in Challengers house, they start to consider what may be done.
• But as their countrymen start to drop, will their oxygen last long enough to determine and implement a solution?

The mysterious substance suddenly becomes a deadly threat as the Earth passes through a belt in the ether, a belt of poisonous ether.