THE MEN OF MARS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue 94, 3 May 1900, Page 4

THE MEN OF MARS.

Pbofkssob K. A.GBBGO«Ymak«shimBWf responsible in the current number of the National Review for some remarkable statements and suggestions as to the physical conditions which prevail on the planet Mare. In dealing with the possible forms of life on that sphere, the writer says it is impossible to resist the thought that it has inhabitants. That, however, is by no means equivalent to saying that Martian folk are constituted in the same way as human beings are. Indeed, every consideration points to the contrary. Whatever atmosphere exists on Mars must be much thinner than ours, and far too rare to sustain the life of any people with our limited long capacity. A race with immense chests could live nnder such conditions, or a folk with gills like fishes might pass a comfortable existence in spite of the rarefied air. The character of life anywhere, in fact, is moulded by external circumstances, • and as these are known to be different on Mars from what they are on the earth, Martian inhabitants must have developed peculiar characteristics in order to adapt them to their environments—the forms of life capable of flourishing in attenuated air having survived, while those requiring a denser air have dropped out of existence.

The tenuity of the atmosphere of Mara in not the only fact which suggests that the inhabitants of that planet are fashioned differently to terrestrial men. It is known beyond the possibility of a doubt that the force with which a substance is attracted to the surface of Mars is but little more than a third as strong as it is on the earth, or, to express the point in figures, 1001b on the earth would only be 381b on Mars if tested in a spring balance. In consequence of this weaker pull it would be possible for a human being, if he found himself on Mars, to perform astonishing feats without excessive muscular exertion. For instance a man who could jump sft on earth would top 15ft on Mars: he could lift 3cwt. with the same strength needed to raise lcwt. here; he could spring across the road as easily as he steps over a mud puddle; while a couple of bounds would carry him to the top of an ordinary flight of stairs. But paradoxical as it may seem, the smaller a planet, and consequently the less poll of gravity on its surface, the greater is the possibility that its inhabitants are giants compared with ourselves. Terrestrial giants are generally weak in the knees—being oppressed by their own weight—but on Mars they would only weigh one-third as much, and would consequently be able to move about in a sprightly fashion, so that a Martian elephant might be a nimble animal. It is computed that to place the Martians under the same conditions as those in which we exist the average inhabitant must be considered three times as large as the average human being, while the strength of the Mars folk must exceed ours to an even greater extent than the bulk and weight, for their muscles would be twenty-seven times more effective. When this fact is considered in conjunction with the decreased weight of bodies on that planet it is easy to see that one Martian could do as much work as fifty or sixty men on earth. A coal heaver on Mars could therefore carry two and a-half tons with as little fatigue as his earthly prototype could shoulder lcwt, and a navvy digging one of the canals of Mars could throw out such an enormous, spadeful of soil as would go far to equal the out-turn of. the earthly excavator for the entire day.