This CHINA MAIL
SATURDAY, SEPTEMB
MARS-IS THE RUDDY PLANET INHABITEDŐ
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The Planet is Now at Its .Nearest To Us, and Astronomers Are Hop- ing To Find Out Whe- ther It is Peopled, and, If So What the Folks Who Live On It Are Doing.
[By RENE BACHE.]
IF you have the use of even a smäll telescope, take a look at Mam. It is worth doing, for that planet has never been so near to us since the oldest human being now living was born.
Not again will it approach so new in the Earth until long after the year 2000, when the babies of to-day-the few of thein that happen to survive. will be very aged men and women.
All the big telescopee in the world are now pointed at Mars, which is less tinn d5,000,000 miles distant.. Never before has there been such un" appor funity for detailed examination of its. surface; for astronomers to-day have at their disposal such instruments of abservation as were not until very recent years availabic.
On this Interesting occasion Mars in turning toward us Els southern heml; sphere, on which the astronomers will watch the progress of a Martian Jate autumn and carly winter. They will at the southern ice-cap (corresponding to the ice-cap on our own South Pole) rlowly form.
That in facf is a mutter inviting eneciat attention, inasmuch as the fee. is unquestionably developed by failing snow; and snow implies water vapour, which can be carried and precipitated in a frozen' state only by an atmosphere.
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Heat, Air and Water,
bly most of them have attendan planets, but the latter are invisible to the telescope, though it is only reason able to suppose that millions or ever billions of them are habitable and inhabited by intelligent beings.
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A limit being set to our facilities of observation, we concentrate
Mars, and hope that attention upon within the next very few months we shall learn much about that planet Which as yet remains unknown.
We are told that Mars in a much older planet than the Earth; that it in only one-ninth the size of our terrestrial globe; that, in view of its tesser force of gravity (38 per cent, of ours), the average man on Mara. (If there is such a being) should be eighteen feet tall and of proportionate bulk. He should be correspondingly strong and agile, with a muqcular offelency twenty-seven times as great as that of the average male' American citizen. Hence he could leap with 'a spryness that would shame a kangaroo, and easily joggle with dumbbells which, if we had. them here, would weigh half a ton spiece.
Ahead of Us in Science.
In regard to the Martians, however, the most interesting iden is that, being inhabitants of a much older planet they may be millions of years ahead of In the development of mechanical
This acems to settle the question whether there is air and water on the surface of Mars, Manifestly the planet
a considerable atmosphere con-appliances, in civilization, and in know- We talk about taining a great deal of moisture. ledge of the sciences.
Who Water, air and warhth are the three signalling to them by radio.
knows that they may not have been Prime, essentials for the support of trying to signal to us by that or other animal and plant life.
means for many centuries past?
What shall be said of those "canals?"
How about the warmth? Some authorities have contended that Me There aren't any. Or, rather, it should It he said that the streaks on the Martian must be too cold to support life. 145,000,000 miles from
Sun surface alleged to be canals are really the taverage distance), whereas the Earth le only 93,000,000 miles from the something else. They are still at
theory now mystery, but
more
centrul luminary. But Mars, thanks to generally accepted in that they may be. its thin atmosphere and lack of clouds, gets full benefit of at least 90 per cent.strips of vegetation.
Some of them
of the heat delivered by the Sun, I canal idea seems nonsense. Thorcas the relatively denso and
are as much as 180 miles wide." The
continents is covered with a network of dark stripes, some of them thou
ands of miles long, that do not at all resemble the winding course of streams, Sometimes, where one of those canals opens upon a wax, itewidens out into
Vaporous blanket of gaser that Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer, cuvelopes the Earth allows only 50 per who originated the canal theory, wrote: "All the vast extent of the Martian cent, to come through.
Furthermore, observations of freezing and malting on the surface of Mars appear to indicate that temperatures are about the same as on the Earth.
Clouds are seen from time to time floating in the atmosphere, of Mars,
often. "but not
For that reason iclescopic observation of Its surface suffers no interference; and hence it is that already we know more about that planet than we do about any other heavenly body, the Moon excepted
It for that resson that we have come to be, intensely interested in Mars whereas little attention is paid to Venus, though the latter is the Earth's very twin, of nearly the same size, known to be well watorod, and apparantly enjoying all conditions equirite for habitability, Bat Venus in always covered with a thick envelope of dense doude, so that her surface
Two Habitablò Planets.
Prof. C. Ar Young, of Princeton, has There are only two among the heavenly bodies 'meen wish" om
like
great bay, as in the case of the so-called Syrtis Major, formed by the That vast mouth of the Nilosyrtis. gulf is not less than 1,100 miles broad. te surface nearly equal in area to that of the Bay of Bengal"
This is worth quoting because of the picture it gives of the surface of Marz as it appeared to Schiaparelli Bat his interferences are highly speculative, The dark patches which he took for Hear may not be, water at all,
Observations at this time, when Mars is relatively no close at hand, ought to shed much light upon this and other questions.
If the stripes in question are actually. strips of cultivated vegetation, it would account for the seasonal darke ing and subsequent fading of the Me oil nhiên non đới, which Schiaparelli confessed himself unable to Líf that case, the time of the
LAZ MERCURY
CREAT SCHOLM Jun VENCES..
we witnessing, on Mars, in a bilaking and near-sighted way, the
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CIETY
CAPP
scientist saw that design on the Earth's surface, outlined in light, he would recognize ita meaning instantly,
Where visible signals from Earth to Mara are concerned, however, there is a difficulty of which we need to be
Z reminded. Our own terrestrial globe. a viewed from Mars, "is continually covered to a great extent by floating clouls. Even when clouds are left ou of question, our relatively dense atmos- phere, with much dust in its lower lovels, must to a considerable extent obscura the Earth as a visual object
tunate it would be if we could establish communication with them, and obtait from them knowledge which otherwise, we might need many thou sands of years to acquire
Not very long ago Marcbul was con- vinced that afgnals of some sort were coming through from Mars by radio. His
instruments perceived them- messages carried by waves of enormous length--but he could not translate them. Possibly he was right, but it Beerm mich more likely that his imagination deceived him.
The mystery of Mars has naturally inspired the imagination of romancers." If the planet possesses inhabitants more or less human-like, how vastly interesting it would be to gain com- munication with them. They may have. reached u stage of civilization and enlightenment so advanced that our own is by comparison a
benighted barbarism.
The typical Martian may have a huge brain, with a head of size to carres- pond, and spindly legs. For locomotion on that planet, where the force of gravity is, sosial, he would require littlo muscular effort: Indeed, he may have given up walking. Why walk when there are easy mechanical means for retting about? We, ourselves aro advancing in that direction, evidenced by the invention and develop ment of the automobile,
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Beings, Dikarent From
We are accustomed to consider that conditions as we find them to this world are batablished to fit our require ments. We are air-breathing animals; therefore an atmosphers is provided for our use. So likewise, with every thing elas that goes to make up our environment.
This, however, is a totally mistaken. view; the fact is exactly the opposite. we human beings are products of our environment, created and developed to At it Conditions Mars me very different; hence it is to be presumed that the people there (If there are any beings properly so to be called) are very different from ourselves.
We certainly need to know them. Ther might teach us lots of things for instance, how to desi with the
A few years ago there appeared on the surface of Mara what seemed to the astronamerx to be a very bright light The Idea naturally, suggested itself that it might be a beacon of some sort, meant for a signal to the Earth.
What it really was, nobody knows.desert problem. On all our continents
It is to this day a mystery.
the deserts are spreading at an alarm-
The
Now and then small bright spots aro observed on the surface of the planeting rate. One-sixth of the total area of the United States to-day is desert They are thought to be the tops of Large-parts of the vast sandy waste of snow-capped mountains shining in the the Sahara, in Africa, ware agricuitally
fruitful within historic times. Earth, seems literally to be drying up, its surface waters being absorbed by the underlying rocks.
Y Bat Mars has been a desert for ages. If it is peopled by intelligent planet
belogs, they must long ago, have learned how to deal with, the problem. For water is the prime fundamental
It is conceivable that by the use of electricity we might, it enormous expense, make a signal light of some sort that would be visible to high- power Martian telescopes. Necessarily. It would have to be of immense size.
A Problem in Geometry,, A more humination would not suffice to convince Martian astronomers.
a
of
so that
that the Earth was inhabited by inter-requisite of animal and plant lea ligent boings. But suppose that such for ale to breathe, the Martians beacon were of a certain recognizable be able to get along with mich
long
it than we require.” Perhaps desliz--with a form, say, representing their lungs are of huge capaŭlly, Ang high school boy knows that pro- typical Martian as human-like cres position, the famous ass bridge ture with my big head, mily, st proving that the aquard and spindly legs Ending into view hi hypotheuse of a right-angled triangle great presumable veteres go the other two sides. If a Martian with superbuman intell is equal to the sum of the squared on
seem to us a gigantic goblin, endowed
doings of rationel beings Immensurwinter, each is of eleven months enormous scale, is used for the growing
Thus the snow-cap at each of "Martian, crops?. ably superior to man and capable of length, dealing, by engineering and other pole has time to be so far, melted as to Mars, as zirendy said, is 'a' desert,
be reduced to, a small remnant means, with thousands of square miles
meite, a dark uroq own deserts? Up to now, we haven't. vate a garden patch oneireling it is seen to grow steadily, done very much, but we are bogaming We know that Maria desert and. It is reasonable to infer that this to learns witness what we are doing planet. It looks rod, even to the is water. Asennon, of flood, due to the in the reclamation projects of the West. naked eye; because most of its surface melting, has evidently arrived. There Possibiles of Irrigation the is reddish in colour, though! In parts upon or not long afterwards, the If there be lack of water for yellowish That means red and yellow above-mentioned stripes begin
in to land, anywherd, there is plenty of it sands and rocks. On this background appear, in lines so straight as to appear not far away, usually The most hopp- appear dark and well-defined brownish geometrical. They are from twenty loss desert in the world, as one might and greenish patches, some of them lisa to 180 miles in width. wery large, others small and scatterad.
tri, How one necount for De these patches represent rank and Why they
and again. Luding
there any xcept that the beings is somehow
Löfsterritory 'xh časily, as we'ran culti-As each snow-coplanet: But what do we do with our the forty-second, proposition of Tuclid., we may figurs to our imagination the
Specially conspicuous fon vast inland ses somewhat triangular in stipo which is called the Lake of the Sun Another Alleged water area of great Bize lortho Lake of the Moon,, But, are. 197- these really water at All
ở beat that has been, pejulbla.
Byyobenuations now, being und
suppose, is the vast doprension in the western part of the Sahara: Even the Araba Frith their caravann At anmainl abrinders are going to take the Dewith: Infö and convert