THE RIDDLE OF MARS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4431, 23 June 1922, Page 4

THE RIDDLE OF MARS.

IS THERE ANOTHER HUMAN WORLD I SOME PRESENT-DAY SPECULATIONS. If any Martian could look at us through a telescope, and view the earth as we view Mars, he would observe how the colour of bur earth changes with the seasons. He would see how the verdure of spring, the bridal-time, gives way to the gold afid purple of fruition time, and that to the black and snowy whiteness of the season of; sleep and death. “Vegetation I” he would say. And, going on to argue that the animal is the corollary of the vegetable, he would teach his children that our earth is peopled by gods, men, or beasts. That is how our professors argue about Mars, and come to a triumphant conclusion that it is habitable. For the colours of Mars, as viewed through a telescope, change seasonably, owing to vegetation. We can almost see the Martian vegetables breaking into leaf.

687 Days a Year. Through a telescope Mars appears as a. globe crowned by white spots— Polar caps,—and spread with bluegreen patches—areas of! vegetation on an orange ground—desert—and covered by a network of-lines stretch-' ing from pole to pole, each line joining another which connects with, a third, and so on over the entire world —the famed canals. Tn Mars the day is about forty minutes longer than ours. The 'seasons are wonderfully like ours, but in length nearly double, the year consisting of 687 of our days. The Polar caps melt in the summer, to form again in the winter. Molting, they are bordered by blue belts—water, but not much. There are no mountains and no great seas. But there are clouds, and often dust-storms. The climate is cold, but most of the surface is above freezing point. The sky is usually perfectly clear, like that of a dry, desert land. The weather is as wanton as with us, and successive Martian years bring early and late seasons. These are some of the main articles of the Martian creed as they are set forth by the American astronomer, Professor Lowell, in his work, "Mai's.” Older ffltam the Earth. The blue-green regions, he tells us, were formerly thought to be seas, bui they cannot be seas, because they change in tint according to seasons, and show certain permanent marks. The colour comes and goes, as that of vegetation would in growth and decay. Vast areas change from, bluegreen to ochre. Once it was thought that this meant the transference of thousands of- tons of some substance. Now it is put down to the quiet turning of the leaf under autumn’s fiery touch. Vecgtation would mean carbonic r.cid, oxygen, and nitrogen in

the Martian atmosphere. I It seems that Mars, like the moon, I .'has passed through the stage at ! which our earth finds itself to-day, with oceans and seas, and we may follow it to a waterless age. Our oceans have been dwindling since archaic times. In Mars we may see a mirror of our own future. It is the brick-red tracks that give i Mars its fiery tint to th,o naked eye. I Through the telescope they look just like our deserts, the Sahara or the Painted Desert of Arizona, that land !of lambent saffron. Three-fifths of ' the whole surface of. the planet is desert. There are 55.000,000 square j miles of Mars. Travellers of our own ' Saharas can best picture what Mars 1 is like, and what its waterless condiI tion must mean. To the Martian there ! must be terrible significance in the | word desert. He must need water very badly, since his only supply, apart, from what may be in the air, comes from the melting of the snowcaps. NaturI ally he would make every effort to I build lines of water communication. Knowing his conditions, we should expect his country to be a network of canals. The inference, says 'Professor Lowell,' that the canals are artificial is “forthright.”

Canals 30 liiiles Wide* They run for thousands of mjles unswervingly, as far relatively as from London to Bombay. They suggest a spider’s web seen against the grass of a spring morning, a mesh d fine reticulated lines that compass the globe, of uniform, width, exceeding tenuity, and great length, and as dead straight as if laid down by rule and compass. No planet shows the like. They range from a mile or two in width to thirty miles, and one, named Eumenides-Orcus, is 3540 miles long. Where the lines intersect round dots appear—oases, measuring about a hundred miles across. The aim of the canal system seems to be to trap the snowcap,? for the water there let Idose semi-annually and distribute it. All along the canals vegetation flourishes in season, fed by the water, vegetation that fades away when the first frosts and snows are dpe. The presence of th.e flora is ground for suspecting a fauna. Vegetable and animal are co-existent on earth, where a scanty flora means a poor fauna. Animals eat plants, and really exist, in the ultimate, on nothing else. Without plants animals would soon cease to exist. AH OU r life comes back to vegetation. And plants are beholden to animals for processes that in turn make their own life possible—it is the lowly worm that makes the soil. The Marians. That life with us, came out of the sea finds a possible parallel in the Martian seas that once existed. Mar-, tian life then had the “wherewith” to begin and having air and water it had the “wherewith” to continue. Why is it, if that life exists, the

astroiomers never see a live Martian? Possibly because he is too small. From' a great height no animal life would be seen on our earth, though vegetation might be visible: flora usually overtops fauna. But the works of animals can be seen, thougn we ourselves have nothing, to compare to the Martian’s canals. Professor Lowell concludes : “Mars is large enough to have begotten vegetation and small enough to be already old. All that we know of the physical state of the planet points to the pnssiiblity of both vegetable and animal life existing there, and, furthermore, that this life should be 0! a relatively high order is possible. Nothing contradicts this. That Mars is inhabited by beings of. some sort or other we may consider as certain,”