The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1870-07-29
TUE OTHER WORLDS.

TUE OTHER WORLDS.
Revelations Of the Spectroscope-The
Probable Citizens of Mars-Jupitef
I'm q State Of Eruption. 5t 8
stFrom the N. Y. SUM-
Richard A. Proctor, F. r. A. ST. one
of the rising lights of British science,
who is especially distinguished for as
Economical learning, has Just published
in London most valuable and interest
ing work, under the title of "Other
Worlds than Ours" from which we
gave an extract on Tuesday, and in
which the question of the plurality OF
worlds is studied under the light of the
most recent scientific researches. The
conclusion arrived at is that several
of the planets of our system
are obviously adapted to be the
habitation Of intelligent beings like
man, and are probably inhabited and
peopled much like the earth.
In arriving at this conclusion, Mr..
Proctor propounds views which differ
from those usually accepted; but all
his theories are based on careful consid-
Grafton and accurate statement OF ac-
knOwledged facts, and are apparently
the result of fair and candid reasoning.
Since the great discussion of the same
subject thirty years ago by Whewell
and Brewster, vast advances have been
made in astronomical knowledge, and
especially within the last few years.
STARTLING DISCOVERIES
have been made in the most unexpect-
ed quarters. Analogies the most inter-
esting have brought the distant orbs of
heaven into close relationship with our
own earth, or with the central lumina-
ry of the planetary scheme; and we
have learned to recognize within the
solar system, and within the wOndrous
galaxy of which our sun is constitu-
ent orb, q variety of structure, and a
complexity of detail, of which until re-
Gently astronomers had formed but the
most inadequate conceptions.
MIR. Proctor argues from the analogy
of the earth that the diversity of eli
mate which exists on the planets offers
no logical reason to conclude that they
are destitute of life. On our own globe
we find .-.-.--.--. .-r
LIFE EVERYWHERE,
in the arctic regions as well as in the
tOrrid zone, on the mountain summit,
and even in the depths of mid-ocean.-
And geology shows that in all the
strange vicisitudes to which the earth
has been exposed in its past history,
there is no evidence of an epoch when
life was absent from her surface. The
climatic conditions of the planets may
be so modified by atmospheres as to be
not materially different from that of the
earth, in the case at least of the plan
cts nearest to us-Venus and Mars.
Venus bears, in some respects, stri-
king resemblance to our earth. In size,
i'm situation, and in density, in the
length of her seasons and of her rota-
ton, in the figure of her orbit and in
the amount of light and heat she re-
ceives from the sun, she is more like
the earth than any orb within the solar
system. Venus has a year of 224 days
and IL hours, and her distance from
the SUI is somewhat less than three
fourths of ours. Her day is only half
an hour shorter than ours. Her size is
but little less than that of the earth.
1t is clear then, that merely in the
greater proximity of Venus to the sun
there is little to render at least the lar
ger proportion of her surface uninhabi-
table to j. 90 "sl'..i--1
SUCH BEINGS AS EXIST ON THE EARTH.
The sun, as seen in her skies, has a
diameter One-third larger than he pre-
sents to us, and his apparent surface
dimensions, on which, of course, his
heating and illuminating powers de-
pend, are greater in the proportion of
about sixteen to nine. This undoubt-
edly would render his heat almost un-
bearable in the equatorial regions of
Venus, but in her temperate and sub
arctic regions q moderate climate might
exist, and still mores.s:mo oderate in her
polar regions.
Venus is the only planet the extent
of whose atmosphere has been careful
ly estimated. 1t is considerably larger
than ours, and probably tempers very
much the fierceness of the solar heat.
OF the constitution of her atmosphere
we know little. The spectrum of her
light shows the dark lines which belong
to the solar spectrum, and the Padre
Secchi has noticed certain faint lines
which seem to indicate the presence of
aqueous vapOr in the atmosphere of the
planet. The same eminent observer
finds also, in the strengthening of the
nitrogen lines near the f life of the
spectrum, other evidence that the at
mosphere of Venus is constituted very
similarly to .-'3 <'
THE AIR. WE BREATHE. .--t. ?
On the whole, says Mr.. Proctor, the
evidence we have points very strongly
to Venus as the abode of living Great
ures not unlike the inhabitants of earth.
Certainly, the strong light which the
sun pours upon Venus need least of all
be objected to, since, if there is one
adaptative power which nature eXhib-
its more clearly than another, it is that
by which the various creatures we are
acquainted with are enabled to live in
comfort under all degrees of light, from
the Obscurity in which the mole prir-
sues his subterranean researches to the
blazing light of the MONDAY sun, to-
ward which, in fable if not in fact, the
eagle turns bis unshrinking eyes"
The evidence in favor Of Mars being
inhabited is much stronger than that
III tIlC CttSC VI NChefo, w liuCCu VI dhy
other planetary orb. Mars is about s.
600 miles in diameter, so that his line
ar dimensions bear to those OF the
earth the proportions of about to s.
Gravity at his surface is much less than
terrestrial gravity, SO that one of eur
pound weights would weigh on Mars
but 6 ounces. 4f -.Er --Efr
ADANIEL LAMBERT ON MARS
would be able to leap easily to a height
of five or six feet, and he could run fis-
ter than the best of our terrestrial ath-
letics. A man of his weight, but pro-
portioned more suitable for athletic ex-
ercises, could easily leap over twelve
foot wall. t il'.'- c.a-.f+ o.
Mars travels in such an excentric or
BIT that the light and heat he receives
from the sun vary very much accord-
ing to his position. When he is at his
mean distance from the sun, the light
and heat he receives are less: than ours