The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-05-22
THE RED PLANET,
specuialons About the "CanaIs" of Mars
and Their Builders.

From the San Francisco Call.
People who can obtain the privilege of look
Ing at Mars through the Lick telescope should not
neglect the opportunity. Several years have elapsed
since that remarkable planet could be seen to such
al advantage as at present, and it will be three
years uelore we have equal chance again. 1t has
certainty never heen examined before through
Telescope OF such power the monster refractor on
Mount Hamilton
~ may be interesting to lovers of astronomy to
know that the eminent French astronomer NJ. Per-
Io'4li, is engaged in q minute study of Mars, and
.hat MS discoveries confirm those of NJ Schiaparlli
III every particular 1t seems actually true that the
longitudinal stripes which circle around the planet
are poues OF water, and must, according to oil laws
Oh probability, be artificial. No one ever saw or
conceived system of parallel rivers from 900 to
2'ooO miles long and straight as plumb line. Ev-
erythng is possible, of course but such straight
rivers II is impossible to reconcile with the prnci-
pies OF cosmogony as we understand them On this
pahe'' AT all events, nature abhors straight line.
and by analogy it should do so in Mars
Yet, fthese bodies of water are canals as Schia-
parilli believed, and Perrotn seems hardly to
doubt, what monstrous works they must be- They
are from nifty to eighty miles wide Fancy the To-
Dor OF digging such canal, the time il must have
taken ana the number of men it must have en-
ployed. The pyramids of Egypt are triaing in COM
Ilson The Suez canal is 1877 feet wide at the sur
lace and the Nicaragua canal is TO be $50 feet the
Marian canals are $500 times wider Our canals
on this one horse glole are considered long when
they reach 100 miles in length The Panama canal
wsil be less than GO miles long The canals of Mars
reach length of 1000 mies-say rs far from here
10 Omaha What traffic there must be to support
such enterprises. On the waterways of China
travellers describe the ncessant ebb and flow of null
ttudinous crowds, but to require canals of such di
mensons as we have described, the movement of
Traffic in Mars must be far more prodgious In fact
they imply population which almost staggers be-
lief; considering that the Volume of the planet is
only one-sixth that of the earth, the diameter
being 4,4O0 miles us against 5000 miles, they war
rant the widest conjectures to the density with
which it may be peopled.
What manner of man lives in Mars, if there be
men there, has always been favorte topic of spec
uiation. The law of gravitation tells us that he may
be fourteen feet high; not such son of Anak as the
inhabitants of the asteroids. but still one who would
regard the Belgian giant as remarkable dwarf
Possibly the enormous public work on Mars may be
explained on the theory that those tall fellows can
work in proportion to their staurethat one citizen
OF Mars can shovel as much dirt as two and half
denizens of this world.
Whether the grass of Mars is red as the old astron-
omers averred modern telescopes have failed to de-
clde. 1t is very difficult to determine colors when
an object lens collects thirty thousand times as much
light as normally enters the human eye. But the
speculative astronomer is safe in asserting his belief
that Marian cabta are the color of our beet
oots' as no one can disproye the assertion.