Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1886-12-24
RAILROADS IN MARS.
SpecuIatiOns Concerning an A.
trOnOmer,S Recent Discoveries

The New York Commercju IdrertiSe
is moved to say that the recent discov
cries made by an eminent Italian astrOn
= olntr concerning the planet Mars DO no
seem to have attracted the attention tina
| their large significance entities them to
| This keen observer, we are told, wllllt
studying Mars about nine years ago, no
| tiCed number OF narrow lines, appa-
rently transportation lines, which he
| conceived to be canals connecting two
extensive areas which he imagined to be
seas or lakes. 1t seems more likely that
they were the latter, for when they were
presented as contributions to science they
were accepted as entirely fresh.
Now within short time, taking a more
powerful glass, the same gentleman an
nounces that wherever there was one
canal there are two canals, and that they
are all larger than those first seen. This
is not the first time that taking second
glass has resulted in seeing double, es-
pecially when the second glass was adj
mitted to be more powerful, but, so lar as
records go, it is the first time that this
has resulted when there was an interval
OF nine years between the glasses.
The doubling of the canals" there
fore, is accepted for fact, and specula-
ton in the transportation lines OF Mars IS
open to all who prefer this larger field to
the somewhat less remote and much less
understood bonanza OF the Pacific Slope.
1t is especially interesting to the student
OF sociology who regards 1.-THE transporta-
ton problem as part OF his province ;
for Mars is supposed by many to be a
world like ours, only far ripper and much
further along toward the complete devel-
opment of things and people
The first thought on a survey OF the
facts furnished by the telescope is wheth-
er these lines are canals at all, and not
really railroads. Canals are set aside
now by the scientific student of progress
as belonging to the past, not to the flu
ture. If Mars presents the earth in a
future state, the canals should not, by
this theory, be part OF it. On the
other hand, the probability that they are
railroads becomes almost Il certainty
when we look at the evidence. Within
the. observed period of nine years each OF
the original lines has been paralleled
by rival line, and everybody knows
this has been the history OF railroads
everywhere. The expansion and the
paralleling OF the lines is almost enough
proof by itself. A doubt comes in only
by reason OF the singular color and
liquid appearance of the lines. The OBJ
servers say they look like water. May
be they are water. Is there a railroad
on our own little globe that hasn't more
or less water in it? With our immature
methods we poor creatures OF earth are
able to build railroads which are 80 per
cent. or more water, as we all know. If
we, who are not over half perfected, can
build roads OF one-half water, it follows
as a natural sequence that the Martians,
who are practically completed, can build
their roads altogether OF water. Thus
the fact that these seem to be water
routes is the clinching evidence that they
must be rail routes. Our own students
OF railroad problems are now unsaying
their former denunciations OF stock
watering, and in so far are removing one
slight obstacle to our growing still more
like Mars.
We must wait nine years more for the
learned astronomer to take another glass,
and consequently we cannot look for the
present to be informed how a railroad
made entirely of water can be operated
with speed and safety. But the demon
stration that the thing is done in Mars
ought to be OF lively encouragement to
some manipulators who are so energet-
ically battling against the limitations
that the conditions of our imperfect state
set upon their ambitious schemes,