Iowa voter. [volume] (Knoxville, Iowa) 1867-1874, 1874-04-09

In the habit of looking upon as an incon-
venience is, therefore, in reality, a very
important part of the earth's economy.
VENUS.
But / now pass from Mercury to the
next planet. Venus. But Venus is too
gloriously Illuminated by the sun, and
the application OF the telescope is disap-
pointing. Again, we never see Venus
under proper conditions. You never see
The whole portion of the illuminated
surface. When Venus is nearest to the
earth the sun lies in the same direction,
and therefore Venus turns her darkened
side and cannot be seen. When beyond
the sun his brightness obscures her. The
only time Venus can be studied is when
she is on the two opposite sides of her
path, and then she is seen either as a
gibbous moon or half moon. We
know, with respect to Venus, that she,
oeing very much nearer to the sun than
the earth is. must have great deal more
heat. Her heat is not SO great as that of
Mercury; still she has twice as much
neat as the earth has. In other respects
Venus is more like the earth. Although
Venus has no moon, yet being nearer the
sun she must have tides, and they are
barely comparable with those that exist
IN the earth.
But there is one peculiarly in the con-
dition of Venus that seems very unfavora-
BILE to life, as we know it here Accord
ing to the, observations of the Italian
astronomers the axis, instead of being
sloping at a small angle, has large
angle. Only for short time would she
have equal day and night, but when the
northern pole is toward the sun. all the
polar parts would be continually turned
toward the sun; not merely a small part,
bat very nearly half of the planet on that
side. When the southern pole would be
turned toward the sun that side would
have continual day, and there would
be continual night over nearly half OF
the planet. So there would be a very
great change in the condition of
the planet in winter and summer. 1t
is continual night, and after that ex-
tremely heated summer. These changes
are not agreeable to our ideas of the pos
sibilities of life. They suggest this pos
sibility, emigration. That is absolutely
necessary TO certain classes of beings
here on this earth.
Mars, instead of being like Venus, is a
planet that we can study very fully in
deed. We have here the orbits; here is
that of the earth, there that of Mars
A portion of the time the face of
Mars is turned toward the sun, and
is also turned toward the earth,
and thus illuminated is studied to
great advantage. You can conceive,
therefore, how il is that astronomers have
been able to take such pictures as these of
the planet, having features resembling
those of the earth. There is an appear.
ance of two bright white points at oppo-
site sides, which have always been called
the snowy poles of Mars. Herschel was
the first to perceive that they waxed and
waned in size. He noticed that the axis
was inclined very much like that of our
earth, or rather more than our earth, but
SO nearly like il that the same sort of sea-
sons prevail. He noticed that when the
summer was in progress the polar regions
seemed smaller than in winter. That was
the first thing to show that the planet was
like our earth. Our snowy regions do
not cover more than the arctic regions,
and they occupy about the same proper
tons as those of Mars, surface. Since
the polar SHOWS do not extend further,
therefore the same sort of climate 1t
seemed probable prevailed there. Other
features corresponding to the idea of the
habitableness Of Mars were noticed.
Some portions have greenish hue, as
though there were oceans. The planets
continents, or what we call continents,
were ruddy; and white surfaces some
times seemed to form over these CONT
nents or oceans, and to melt away during
the day, as If clouds were being dissipated
by the action of the sun.
The theory in relation TO Mars was that
it was disc or globe covered with hoar
frost, and having other peculiarities differ
ent from ours. That theory seemed to
me so inconsistent that put forward my
self, or at least adopted, the theory that
Mars Is a globe like our earth, where all
similar processes take place-rain, wind,
storm, clouds, rivers, being produced, de.
mutation taking place--everything seemed
80 much like the earth. But then came
this annoying theory that would put
Mars altogether out Of the scheme Of an
inhabited world, that 1t was only covered
at night by hoar frost, and that there was
everything in Mars unlike the earth in
stead of like it. / determined to destroy
that noxious theory, and began an essay
to destroy it, But | found as | went
along that the old theory was as strong as
the one adopted in its stead, and fin
ished that essay by advocating the theory
that intended to destroy. ! found there
was very good reason indeed TO believe that
Mars is In a condition quite unlike our
earth; that it has very rare atmosphere;
that it has an atmosphere bearing the
same relation TO that Of this globe that the
oceans of Mars and its continents bear to
ours. The oceans in Mars are very much
smaller proportionately than the oceans
on our own earth. There is no Pacific
there. In fact there is no Atlantic. You
have only oceans comparatively small;
the lands and seas are intermixed. You
take the case Of our own earth. The two
Americas form single island; Europe,
Asia and Africa form another large
island and we have the oceans around
those islands. There IL nothing of that
in Mars. You can travel from any one
part of Mars to another. You need not
leave the sea or land, according TO your
taste, if you are an inhabitant Of Mars.
And then there is the small gravity of the
planet. If the gravity of our own earth
were suddenly changed to the gravity in
Mars, pound weight would be reduced
from sixteen to six ounces, and the air
xvauld no reduppd in the same DrODOrtIOu.