Richland beacon., 1888-06-02
THE RED PLANET.
SpeculatiOns About the Canals" Of
Mars and Their Builders.
From the San Francisco CALL


People who can obtain the privilege
of looking at Mars through the Lick
telescope should not neglect the Oppor-
tunity. Several years have elapsed since
that remarkable planet could be seen to
such advantage as at present and it will
be three years before we have an equal
chance again. 1t has certainly never
been examined before through teles-
cope Of such powcras the monster refrac-
tor on Mount Hamilton.
1t may he interesting to lovers of as
tronomy to know that the eminent
French astronomer, NJ. Perrotin, is en-
gagged in a minute study of Mars, and
that his discoveries confirm those of M.
Schiaparilli in every particular. 1t
seems actually true that the longitudinal
stripes which circle round the planet are
bodies of water, and must, according to
all laws of probability, be artificial. No
one ever saw or conceived system of
parallel rivers from 1000 to 1000 miles
long and straight rs plumb line.
Everything is possible of course, but
such straight rivers it is impossible to
reconcile with the principles of cosmo-
gony as we understand them. On this
planet, mt all events, nature abhors
straight line, and by analogy it should
do so in Mars.
Yet, if these bodies of water are canals,
as Schiaparilli believed and Perrotin
seems hardly to doubt, what monstrous
works they must be. They are from 80
to so miles wide. Fancy the labor of
digging such canal, the time it must
have taken. and the number of workmen
it must have employed. The pyramids
of Egypt are triiing in comparison.
The Suez Canal is 1O7 feet wide
at the surface, and the Nicaragua
canal is to be $50 feet; the Martial can
ais are $500 times wider. Our canals
on this one horse globe are considered
long when they reach 100 miles in
length. The Panama canal will be less
than 60 miles long. The canals of Mars
reach a length of 5000 miles-say as far
as from here to Omaha. What traffic
there must be to support such enter
prises. On the waterways of China
travellers describe the incessant ebb and
flow of multitudinous crowds, but to re-
quire canals of such dimensions as we
have described, the movement of traffic
in Mars must be far more prodigious.
In fact, they imply a population which
almost stagSers belief; considering
that the volume of the planet is only
one-sixth that of the earth, the diameter
being 4, 400 miles as against 8, 900 miles,
they warrant the widest conjectures as
to the density with which it may be
peOpled.
What manner of man live in Mars, if
there be men there, has always been a
matter Of conjecture. The law of gray
itntion tells us that he may be IA feet
high; not such son of Anak rs the III
habitants of the asteroids, bat still one
who would regard the Belgian giant as
a remarkable dwarf. Possibly the en-
ormous public works on Mars may he
explained on the theory that these tall
fellows can work in proportion to their
stature that one citizen of Mars can
shovel as much dirt rs two and half
denizens of this world.
Whether the grass of Mars is red or
not, as the astronomers averre !, modern
telescopes have failed to decide. 1t is
very difficult to determine colors when
m object lens collects thirty thousand
times as much light as normally enters
the human eye. But the speculative
is safe in asserting his be-
lief that Marian cabbages are of the
color of our beet-roots, as no one can
lisprove the assertion.