, 1888-06-15
VIEWING THE RED PLANET.
Specuiations About tho Canals" in Mar,
and Their BufldcnL

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~Speouiations About the Canals" in Mar.
and Their BufIdc
People who can obtain the privilege of
looking at Mars through the Lick tele
scope should not neglect the opportunity
Several years have elapsed since this re
markable planet could be seen to ouch ad
vantage as at present. and 1t will be three
years before we a an equal chance
again 1t has certainly never been exam
med before through a telescope of such
power as the monster refractor IN Mount
Hamilton
It may be Interesting to lovers Of as
tronomy TO know that the eminent French
astronomer, NJ. Perrotin, Is engaged in q
minute study Of Mars, and that his dis
coveries confirm those Of M S~chiaparilli
in every particular. 1t seems actually
true that the longitudinal stripes which
circle round the planet are bodies of water,
which must, according to all law of
probability. be artificial No ono ever
saw or conceived a system of parallel
rivers from 1000 to 1000 miles long and
straight as plumb lines. Everything is
possible. of course, but such straight
rivers II is impossible to reconcile with
h principles of cosmogony as we under
stand them. On this planet, at all events.
nature abhors a straight line. and by
analogy 1t should do SO In Mars.
Yet. II these bodies of water are canals.
as S%chiaparilli believed and Perrotin seems
hardly to doubt, what monstrous works
they must be. They are from fifty to
eighty miles wide. Fancy the labor of
digging such a canal, the time it must
have taken. and the number Of workmen
it have employed. The pyramids of
Egypt are trifing in comparison The
Suez canal ls 1917 feet wide at the surface.
and the Nicaragua somewhat wider. Our
canals on this one horse globe are con
sidered long when they reach 100 miles in
length. The Panama canal will be less
than sixty miles long. The canals of
Mars reach a length of 1000 miles-say rs
far as from here to Omaha What a traffic
there must be to support such enterprisesl
On The waterways of China travellers de
scribe the incessant ebb and flow of
m~ultitudinous crowds, but to require
canals OF such dimensions as we have de.
scribed, the movement of traffic in Mars
must be far more prodigious. In fact.
they Imply q population which almost
staggers belief; considering that the
volume of the planet is only one-sixth
that of the earth, the diameter being
400 miles as against 5000 miles. they
warrant the widest conjectures az to the
density with which 1t may be peopled
What manner of man lives in Mars, II
AACh hhSAOg AHo o"oJ DNNh -
favorable topic of speculation. The law
Of gravitation tells us that he may be-
fourteen feet high-not such a son of
Anak as the ~inhabitant of the asteroids.
but still one who would regard the Belgian
giant as a remarkable dwarf. Possibly
the enormous pubic works on Mars may
be 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 ns two and a half den
izens of this world.
Whether the grass of Mars is red, as
the old astronomers averred, modern tele-
scopes nave failed to decide. 1t is very
difficult to determine colors when IN OBJ
ject lens collects 80. 900 times as much
light as normally enters the human eye.
But the speculative astronomer is safe in
asserting his belief that Marian cabbages
are of the color of our beet roots. as no
n can disprove the assertion--Sau
Francisco Call