i-------- ——---“་
2
MARS.
(Daily Press, 27th June.) Economically Astronomy is one of the most useless of sciences. Thousands of years ago the Ancient Egyptians by making use of the heliacal risings of Sirius evolved a calendar, which for all useful purposes was at least as good as the Julian. Empiric tables for tidal forecasts were evolved in China, at least, many ages ago, and were part of the familiar every-day knowledge of the ordinary fisherman. Ptolemy's know ledge of celestial movements, though crude, would have been quite sufficient to enable the sailor to make his way about unknown seas, had he had sufficient acquaintance with the surface of the earth to obtain cor- rectly a few standard measures. It was not so much his astronomical as his geograph. cal and geodesic knowledge that was at fault. In the face of all this, hundreds of men devote themselves to gazing at insign- ificant points of light, and governments annually spend hundreds of thousands of good money in equipping observatories, with no higher object than standing hopelessly into space, as if it made any matter whether copper or gold was the ruling currency in the Sun or Canopus, or as old Butler put
t:- Betimes.
To feel the pulses of the stars, To find out agues, coughs, catarrbs, And tell what crisis doth define The rot in sheep, or mange in swine: What makes me great, what foels or
knaves-
But not what wise. For only' of those The stars, they say, cannot dispose. Truly of old said the wise Preacher :- Vanity of vanities! all is vanity!
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
limita beyond which it became impossible. The canals showed every indication of hav- ing been planned by intelligent beings, the principal argument for the conclusion being that there was an important physical object to be gained, the protection of vegetable life in the planet's arid regions, and that the canals were so admirably suited for the purpose that they must be conceived as the work of sentient beings. The provey aridity of the surface only added to the strength of this reasoning. It was no easy matter to prove the existence of waters vapour on the surface of Mars, nor on the other hand to disprove it, owing to the fact that all rays had to pass through the vapour-laden atmosphere surrounding the earth, and it was acknowledged that in any
case the amount to be credited to Mars was
[July 6, 190).
the surface of Mars to carry the water fom his polar regions to his equator. Are we to supply machinery? Professor LowELL inclined to think yes, for there is no trace of the channels being sunk deeper at one part than another. Now when we come to com- pare Martian and terrestrial landscapes there will be noted enormous differences; we know that as our moon is effectual in caus ing our tides, so likewise it must have been one of the effective causes in uplifting our mountains. And here again a difference is to be noted. The earth revolves on its axis, and the elevatory forces would act in circles of latitude. The moon presents always the same face to her primary, and bence the action of gravity would act on points, and so ber mountains are practically all sugar- loafs. But Mars has no near neighbour to disturb his inner equilibrium, and hence apparently we find he has no mountains at all. In general terms this
easy to com- prehend, not so when we come to details. The orb of Mars, as our own, is not round but oblate, and this we can readily see must be the form for static equilibrium, or as we may call it isostasis. But our earth gets on fairly well and manages to support without much wincing great mountains like the Himalayas. We know from actual experi ment that all the rocks of which the earth is composed, if subjected to pressure much less than to which they are actually subject- ed, will give way like a piece of freshly made putty; and Mars we must presume is built the same way. But why has be yield- ed so much more, so much more, in fact, that he cannot show a pimple? This is one of the points, along with many others that our present knowledge will not permit us to account for.
almost infinitesimal. From his station at Flagstaff in Arizona, Professor LowELL, nothing daunted, undertook the search, with the result that he has found traces of watery vapour sufficient to convince many of the doubters. But this was only one stage of the argument, water could be proved, and hence the possibility of life, as we know it. But it was not life but sentient and calculat- ing life that he wanted to prove. One of his arguments, that of purpose, has been mentioned; another is the extreme adapta- tion of means to an end, marking a directing mind. The canals, such as they are, give many indications of this. First to be noted is their directness, they all select the short- est course--that of the great circle, which as they run in every possible direction and at all angles with the equator, could scarcely be attributed to blind chance. Another is their extreme length travelling, for hundreds, and Some thirty years ago an Italian astrono- in more than one case thousands of miles. A. mer looking at Mars saw what seemed to third is the extreme evendess of the width,
Altogether, wo may conclude that there him a few threadlike markinge across his they are in fact like fine threads of filatured
are, or have been, intelligent living beings face: not knowing what they were, he silk, without knots or irregular thickenings. on Mars, but they were of necessity very ventured on calling them channels, or A fourth, and the most remarkable, is their different from ourselves, and have been kennels, canali, which the English people, duplication in particular parts, clearly it able to live in an atmosphere next door to a not knowing anything better, immediately would seem of set purpose and for some
vacuum; they must have been likewise able translated canals. Curiously enough the important reason. A most remarkable thing to live on the smallest modicum of water, accidental name thus given expresses nach in this connection is that at their inter Their landscape would be confined to an more closely than the original applied by sections there is invariably a patch of bluish interminable plain, unmarked by a single SCHIAPARELLI the actual uses of the lines. green, as if an oasis of vegetation, and the rising ground, and their only scenery would Shortly after their discovery certain as- Bize of the patch increases in proportion to have Consisted of a wood here and there tronomers commenced to see the canals the number and size of the canals by which where the canals brought sufficient water to double, but it took some years to convince it is fed. One thing about the aspect of the support life. They had no seas, so could the bulk of the gazers that they were planet seems still more remarkable, and hardly have had commerce, and yet they not a simple hallucination of the over that is that there is nowhere anything that must have had sufficient skill in geodesy sanguine discoverer. A s to what the can be interpreted as being ocean, or even lines really were
to lay our great circles many hundreds of there were nearly as reasonably sized sea. Formerly Mars was miles long. It would in certain respects have many opinions as observers, gradually, es mapped as consisting of oceans and con- been an advantage to them that Mars was pecially after the lines were found to exist tinents, and the names, and the names only, much lighter than our earth, and that the on carefully taken photographs, the idea still appear on the planetary maps, but the same muscle could carry with ease a load at came to prevail that they really were canald, idea has long been dismissed; and what least some six times greiter. If he wanted and carried water to irrigate the parched up were called seas, are now described as de- to move the water in his canals be must, plains about Mars' central regions, and that serts. Mars in fact may be described as
still apparently, have stood in need of they were artificially constructed to carry off alternate oasis and desert. And this lends machinery. But how did he drive it? As the water from the spring melting of the a curious significance to the fact of the seemingly there is no room for geological planet's arotio snow.cape. So far on good. canale baking their direct course aloug great work on a perfect plain without water or But then another set of astronomers, acting circle tracks. If there were any elevations, elevatory forces, how were minerals to be as advocati Diaboli came to spoil this beauti-as, e.g. on our earth such a course would be deposited? and how was coal to be produc- ful theory by denying that there was any absolutely impractical; it would be inter-ed? We know a little doubtless about Mars, Water, or air, on Mars, and that the winter rupted before the first mile had been run; con about the poles must be sufficiently yet here on Mars the great circle canals severe to freeze carbonic acid. Chemical course for hundreds and thousands of miles proofs were adduced to show that with the without a single curve. Thr only possible amall attraction of gravity on the surface of explanation is that the surface of Mars is a Mars, owing to the slight tension of watery perfectly level plain-that is that the sur- rapour, the water must have long since face is always at right angles to the force escaped from the atmosphere into space of gravity acting towards the planet's centre Mars, according to these theorists must be of gravity. The construction of the canals as dead a world as the moon, and it was as compared with similar works on our hopeless to look there for any trace of earth, would then be a comparatively early life, intellectual or otherwise. Meanwhile task, the more so that the materials to be Professor LowELL had been making a special moved would weigh less than a sixth of the study of Mars, and applying the principles like on earth. But this raises another of mathematics to the problem. It was enigma. Water requires a slope to flow of unreasonable to suppose that life did not itself, say at the least a couple of feet per 190 xist as we had no means of knowing the mile, and this would need to be exceeded on
1.
registräva regulate the F
but it is of a singularly useless nature, Economically we are as much as ever in the dark. Astronomy, as we suggested at the beginning, cannot yet be considered as one of the economical sciences.
The gentry, literati and merchants of Hunan, Kiangsu, Chekiang and Kpangtung haye lately . been holding meetings to make a concerted demand on the Central Government for a constitution and Parl nentary representation. Messages have also been sent to the local self- government clubs and Chambers of Commerce throughout the Empire calling upon them to organise a similar movement, so as to obtain what is desired by united action.
+
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.