ALLEGED CANALS IN MARS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10060, 4 June 1910, Page 3

ALLEGED CANALS IN MARS.

Dr. Arrhenius, the famous Swedish scientist and Nobel prize-winner, propounded at a meeting of the Stockholm Society or Physics, a new , and curious theory concerning: the sccalledicanals in Mars, writes a London "Daily Telegraph" correspondent. He said that as a consequence of various changes, including thickness of Ihe planet's crust, several parallel cacks ha;l been formed, which had gradually been filled up with saud. This sand, Dr. Arrhenius argued, contained various salts, which assume different colours, according to the amount of dampness permeating the soil of the planet at different seasons. The "melting snow" often referred to by writers on Mars, is, says the doctor, merely evaporation at the Martian Poles. During the evaporation the cracks assume a darker hue, but become light in colour again when porary dampness has passed away. His theory, Dr. Arrhenius, believes, completely explains the reason why the channels change colour. The seas in Mars, he adds, contain a large quantity of sand, and are not very deep. Finally, the lecturer stated that so far as his experiments went, the temperature of the planet was too low to permit fof the existence of plants or any other organisms.