San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1888-07-26
VIEWING THE RED PLANET.
speeuiations About the Canals In Mar
and Their builders.


People who can obtain the privilege OF
looking nj Mars through the Lick tele-
scope should not neglect the opportunity
Several years have elapsed since this re-
markablo planet could DO seen TO such nd
vantage as at present, and II will be three
years before we have an equal chance
again II has certainly never been exam
ined before through telescope OF such
power as tho monster refractor ON Mount
Hamilton.
II may be interesting to lovers Of Us
tronomy TO know that the eminent French
astronomer. NJ, Perrotin. Is engaged In a
minute study OF Mars. and that his dis.
coveries confirm those Of Nj Schiaparilli
In every particular II seems actually
true that the longitudinal stripes which
circle round the planet arc bodies of water,
which must, according to .nll laws OF
probability. DO artificial No one ever
saw or conceived system Of parallel
rivers from 1G00 to 1900 miles long and
straight as plumb lines Everything Is
possible. of course, but such straight
rivers II is impossible to reconcile with
the principles of cosmogony as wo under
stand them. On this planet, Mt all events,
nature abhors straight line. and by
Yet If these bodies of water are canals,
ms Schiaparilli 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 canal, the time II must
have taken and the number Of worlSmen
II must have employed The pyramids of
Egypt are triiing In comparison. The
Sucz canal is l91 feet wide at the surface,
and tho 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 traffic
there must be to support such enterprises!
On the waterways of China travellers de
scribe the incessant ebb and flow of
multitudinous crowds, but to require
canals of such dimensions as we have de-
scribed, tho movement of traffic In Mars
must DO far more prodigious. In fact,
they imply a population which almost
staggcrs belief; considering that the
volume of the planet Is only one-sixth
that of the earth the diameter being
A. 100 miles us against 5000 miles, they
warrant the widest conjectures as to the
density with which 1t may be peopled,
What manner of man lives in Mars, If
there be men there, has ifwaya been
favorable topic Of speculation The law
of gravitation tells us that he may be
fourteen feet high-not such son of
Anak as the inhabitant Of the asteroids.
but still one who would regard tho Belgian
giant as 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 us much dirt us two and half den
liens of this world
Whether the grass Of Mars Is red, as
the old astronomers averred. modern tele
scopes have failed to decide 1t Is very
difficult to determine colors when an oh
ject lens collects $4,000 times as much
light as normally enters the human eye
But the speculative astronomer is safe IN
asserting his belief that Martian cabbages
are of tho color Of our beet roots, as no
ono can disprove the assertion. San
Francisco Call.