On the Planet Mars.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 304, 3 October 1888, Page 4

On the Planet Mars.

M. Perrotin, of theNiceObservatory, ha 3 looking through his big telescope at_ the planet Mari£ alfd T M. r Faye, the astronomer of Paris, has read notes of what his compatriot has "discovered at th e Academy of Sciences , in that gay capital, Our report' state* :' This gentleman lately brought a t pqwerful glass to bear. on the planet, and from what he observed ifc appears'that M'arsi3 } noti only 'in habited by men, but by most ekilful and energetic canal-cutters and engineer^, . who put M. de Lesseps and his fellow piercers of isthmuses 'in back seats.' Astronomers have already called the lines poing from sea to sea on the Surface of Mars 'canals.' but M. Perrotin says that some of these waterways are like the Panama project, • still unfinished.' M. Berthelot, one of the academicians, is evidently a light- hearted savant, for he at once asked M. de Lesseps, who was present at the meeting, 'if he had by chauce a brother projector in Mai s, ' whereat all the learned astronomers smiled solemnly. This is surely the first time that a joke has been imported from a ppofc 35,000,000 miles off, which is about the distance of the planet Mars from our earth. The canals perceived by M. Perrotin upon the surface of our next outside neighbour in, the solar system, howev-r, are a long-known mystery "oi the heavens, and one that is probably aa far as ever from being solved by the facetious wizard. Mars happens to be better situated for observation by astronomers than any other body in the sky except the moon. He is more than a hundred times farther oft than the moon at his very closest approach, and measures only 4,200 miles through at his equator; but, unlike the moon, he exhibits in turn eveiy portion of his surface, rotating in a day which is about half an hour longer than our own Thus the entire face of the planet Mars has been pretty accurately mapped, and presents a diversified aspect of large patches of alternating lighter and darker markings, which may naturally suggest the divisions of land and water. At the poles of Mars are extensive white regions, which sometimes show up in the field of the telescope with striking bi illiancy and clearness of definition ; and since these undergo periodic chan&re*, occasionally almost vanishing and then shining forth again at just the seasons when it would be winter with the Martians, astronomers had been led to call them ' icecaps,' and to believe that we actually behold the Arctic and Antarctic polar seas of the planet in the form of these little white saucers stuck on each end of the 'star of war.' As for the canals with which M. Perrotin poked scientific fun at M. de Lesseps, they are certainly very curious objects. From sea to sea, or what looks like it, run these straight passages, wearing an appeal auce, no doubt of some artificial work some Panama or Suez Canal on a colossal scale. They do not alter or extend — there they always are !— some of them completed, others apparently imperfect, as if the Martian Chamber of Deputies had refused to sanction a lottery loan for the fulfilment of the original design But when MM. Perrotin and Faye begin to talk of ' engineers ' and 'men in iVjars' it is necessary to remember that to be seen at all, even as a hairline, these canals in Mars would have to beat least five hundred times as broad as the Thames — say thirty or forty miles across— and as their length is to be reckoned in hundreds of miles, the navvies in Mars,' if any exist, must certainly be wonderful beings ! Astronomers, admirable on so many points, areneyer sostupidand unimaginative as when meditating on the probabilities of life beyond this earth, that old and fascinating topic of 'more worlds than one.' They take their terrestrial notions and experiences much too blindly into space ; they ask if there be an atmosphere in the moon, or water in Mars ; and if any doubts exist about these elements they solemnly conclude that these and other "lovely and eligible celestial abodes are tenantless. As if life were not conceivable without lungs and a liver ! As if we must always carry about with us into the glorious promotions of inter-stellar space the dentist, the anti-bilious pill, and bronchitis ! It is true that for being constructed as we are at present, Mars would be a novel and ralher a surprising kind of abode. Supposing we found dense air enough to breath there and water sufficient for tea and washing — which are both dubious points — the diminished gravitation of the little planet is so great that it would induce a physical and mental levity fatal to dulness and forbidding sense of fatigue. What is a hundred weight here would there weigh only fifty-six pounds, and we could all go upstairs five steps at a time, or jump twice our own height with ease and grace. Then it would assuredly be very nice, if we were living in the right latitude on Mars, to have aquick moonandaslowmoon, always careering round like splendid Chinese lanterns, saving gas bills, and encouraging long walks of lover and Martial poetry. A fall from a horse would seldom or never prove at all serious in the Martial hunting fields ; the rider would rebound from the soft soil like an India-rubber cushion. Aerial navigation has quite possibly been solved long ago by the fortunate people of the red planet, the conditions being so extremely favourable, and who knows, indeed, whether the so-called ' canals ' are not vast bagganing slides, where the entire population enjoys the unwonted sense of swift descent, and some little spice of peril ? But we may be sure of this, that if there be sentient creatures on the silver and pearl surface of Mars they are of a very different, type from our terrestrial frames, for life is always the equation of its surrounding conditions, and we denizens of the earth have lungs and a larynx simply because we live at the bottom of an serial sea, just as fish possess gills because they breathe the water. — London • Telegraph.