Morning journal and courier., 1886-07-21
LIFE ON THE PLANET MARS.
An Ingenious Theory That the Planet
 Is Inhabited by Human Beings.

Is Inhabited by Human Beings.
 From Chambers Journal.1
 Some time ago it was observed that situa-
 ted at each pole of Mars there is 8 white
 patch, which increases and decreases at reg
 ular intervals. This had been observed for
 many years before the explanation was
 suggested by Herschel that it due to
 the freezing of the sea, and was exactly
 analogous to our Arctic and Antarctic oceans. If this was true the patch of ice would of course decrease in the Martial summer and increase again as the winter came on. This was soon shown to be the fact Thus we see that as far as regards the sea Mars is very similar to our earth, with l the exception that the proportion of land is much larger. On the earth the land is only about one-third of the of the sea; while ] on Mars the land and surfaces seem to 1 be about equal in extent. The land is much i cut up by the water, which exists not so much in the form of few large oceans, but l rather as a number of curious shaped mar l row inlets and channels, which intersect the | continent in all directions. The bright red | color of the land is a curious fact for which l no adequate explanation has as yet been sug- l gested. Herschel considered it was due to l the peculiar nature of the soil; but it cer l tainly seems curious that in this point Mars 1 should differ from all the other planets. The l appearance of the earth seen from similar l distance would probably be a dirty green or perhaps brown. In fact on the earth we | have no soil or rock, which occurs in any l quantity, of the red color which we observe | on Mars. There is therefore no vegetation, | unless we adopt the curious theory advanced by French savant that in Mars the foliage I is red. Uuluckily we have no instruments l that can at all help us here; the telescope and spectroscope are alike useless, and for 1 the present we must content ourselves with l vain conjectures.
 | The next point that ought to engage our | attention is the atmosphere, without which no life is possible.
 | Without entering into calculations may state that the pressure of the air at the sur l face of Mars would be about equal to five | inches of mercury, or about one-sixth of the normal atmospheric pressure on the earth. Now, given an atmosphere and 8 large ex tent of sea, we would naturally expect that clouds would form prominent feature on the Martial surface; and observation has proved this to be the case.
 The air on Mars being much less dense
 than on the earth, it is presumable that the winds would move with much greater veloci- 1 ty; and for this reason it has been thought that trees could not grow to any considerable height. We must, however, bear in mind 1 that though the velocity would be high, the actual force of the wind would probably not 1 be very great on account of it's excessive te- l nuity
 In an inquiry as to the probability of the existence of life, one of the most important l points to be taken into account is the amount | of heat available. Now Mars is at such distance from the sun that on the whole it | would receive about two-ffths as much solar
 heat as we do. This does not, however, give
 the amount of heat that is actually received
 on the surface of the planet, considerable proportion being absorbed by the atmos- l phere; and since our atmosphere is so much l denser and thicker than that of Mars, it fol- l lows that we lose much larger percentage