The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1888-06-01
The Red Planet.
lie San Francisco Call.

From the San Francisco Call.
People who can obtain the priviIeOa
OF looking at Mars through the Iiok
telescope should not neglect the 81.
pOrtunity. Several years have lapssa
since this remarkable planet could bs
seen to such advantage as Al
the present, and it will be threa
years before We have an equal CHAINS
again. 1t has certainly never beer
examined before through a telescops
Of such power as the monster refrae.
tor on Mount Hamilton.
1t may be interesting to the lovers
OF astronomy to know that the emi.
nent French astronomer NJ. Perrotln.
is engaged in a minute study OF Mars
and that his discoveries Conirmthosa
OF NJ. S"chiaparilli in every particular.
1t seems actually true that the lonpi.
tudinal stripes which circle round ia
planet are bodies OF water, which
must according to ali laws Of proba.
bility, be artificial. No one ever saw
orconceived system OF parallel rivers
from 200 to 1000 miles long and
straight as a plumb lines. Everything
is possible OF course, but such STRAIGHT
rivers it is impossible to reconcile with
the principles OF cosmogony as We
understand them. On this planet, At
all events, nature abhors a straight
line, and by analogy it should do SO
in Mars.
Yet, if these bodies OF water are ca.
nails, Schiaparllla believed and Perro.
tin seems hardly to doubt, what mon.
strous works they must be. They
are from so to 80 miles wide. Fancy
the labor OF digging such q canal, The
time it must have taken, and the
number OF workmen it must have
employed. The pyramids of Egyptare
tritting in comparison. The Suez canal
1877 feet wide at the surface, and the
Nicaragua canal is to be $50 feet; the
Martial canals are $500 times wider.
Our canals on this one.horse globe
are considered long when they reach
100 miles in length. The Panama ca
nal will be less than 90 miles long.
The canals Of Mars reach a length OK
1900 miles-say as far as from here
to Omaha. What a traffic there must
be to support such enterprises 0nthe
waterways OF China travellers describe
the incessant ebb and flow of multi
tudinous crowds, but to require ca
nails of such dimensions has we have
described the movement of traffic in.
Mars must be far more ~prodigious. In
fact, they imply population, which all
most staggers belief; considering that
the volume of the planet is only one
sixth that OF the earth, the diameter
being 4,400 miles. as against 5000.
miles, they warrant the widest on.
lectures as to the destiny with which
it may be peopled,
What manner of man lives IL Mars,
II there be men there, has always been
a favorable topic for speculation.
The law OF gravitation tellsus that he
may be fourteen feet high; not such q
son of Ahak as the inhabltaut OF the
asteroids, but still one who would re-
gard the Belgian giant as q remarks
bic dwarf. Possibly the eIormous pub
lie works on Mars may be explained
on the theory that these tan fellows
can work in proportion to their stat.
ure-that one citizen of Mars can
shovel as much dirt as two and a halt
denizens Of this world. Whether the
grass of mars is red, as the old al.
tronomers averred, modern telescopes
have failed to decide. It is very diaii-
cult to determine colors when an OBJ
ject lens collects thirty thousand
times as much light as normally en-.
ters the human eye. But the specu.
lative astronomer is sale in asserting
his belief that Martian cabbages are
OF the color OF our beet roots, as no
one can disprove the assertion.