Arizona weekly citizen., 1888-07-07
VIEWING THE RED PLANET.
Speculation. About the '-Canals" In Mar
 a T7.air RuIldcuA

s,...ntat,on. About the '-Canals'' In Mars
 and Their Buildcnl
 Pa,nle who can obtain the privilege of io.ol-,ns, at Alnrs through the Lick tele- scooa should not neglect the opportunity Soraral wears have elapsed since this re- ,narkabie planet could be seen to such ad- ,-a,taye as at present, and It will be three ,eors bafore we have an eluaI chance ssTain- 1t has certainly never been exam ;ned before through telescope or such novver as the monster refractor on Mount
 Iii nav be interesting to lovers of as- tronou,y to know that tho eminent French sstronorner, M Perrotin. Is engaged m minute study of Mars. and that DIS oIS, .Ss, coveries confirm these oi M SchlAp parnh rI,il | in every partisular. t seems AetIa
 .-,s that inc longitudinal stripes which c;rcle round the planet arc bodies of water, ,rbicb must. according to all laws Of ,r-aJabilitv be artificial No one ever sayy or conceived a system Of parallel ,;ro-s from 900 10 2.0O0 miles long and | e.-airht as plumb lines Everything IS ! r,oesillo of course, but such straiSht | ITIvcrs it is impossible to reconcile wlth | The principles of cOsmogony ss we undeE
 stand ,hein. On this planet, at all events, natu-e abhors a straight lne' end Oy anaIoay it should do so in Mars.
 Y,f if tbeso bodies of water are canals. .s ScLioDa~ilu believed and PerrOtin seems | IorJiv ia d1ubt. what mOnstrous works tbcv nust be. They are from fifty to e;g6tv miles wide Fancy the labor of di5,oinr such A canal, the time tt must bays taken and the number Of workmen |. ynnst have employed The pyramids or Egypt are trifiug in comparison The SueZ canal is I97 feet wide aJ the surface and the Nicaragua somewhat wider Our canals on this one horse g-obe are con
 sidered long when they reach -OV HiheS In
 length The Panama canal VIII DC Iess
 than sixty miles long The e~h1Ls o-
 Nars roach a length of ], ,00e miles-ssy as
 far as from here to Omaha What a traLic
 tLero must be to support such enterprisesl On the waterways of China travellers de
 scribe tho incessant ebb and flow or
 multitudinous crowds. but to require
 canals of such dimensions as we have de
 scribed. the movement of traffic ln Mars
 must bo far more prodigious. In fact
 they imply q population which almost
 sfasrers belief; considering that the
 volume of the planet Is only one-sxth , that of the earth, the diameter being
 400 miles as against 5000 miles. they
 warrant the widest eonjecrures as to the density with which it may be peOpled .. What manner of man lives In Mars, II
 there be men there. has always been a
 favorable topic of speculation. The law ] of gravitation tells US that he may oe D fourteen feet high-not such son oi , Anak as the inhabitant of the asteroids. 7 but still one who would regard the Belgian . giant as a remarkable dwarf Possibly the enormous pubic works on Mars may r be explained on the theory that these tai r fellows can work in proportion to theii e stature-that one citizen of Mars car : shovel Gs much dirt as two and half den ! izens of this world
 Whether the grass of Mars Is red. a- ! tho old astronomers ayerred, modern telo C scopes have failed to decide. IL Is verI - difficult to determine colors when en oo : feet lens collects 5000 times as muel
 light as normally enters the human eye
 But the speculative astronomer Is safe Il |, asserting his belief that Martian cabbage are of the color of our beet roots, as m ], one can disprove the assertion.-Sal
 Francisco Call