The Opelousas courier., 1888-08-04
Viewing the Red Planet.
SpecuIations About the Canals" in Mar
and Their Builders.

aM aF@a#E& -- #-
speculations About the Canals" in Mars
and Their Builders.
People who can obtain the privilege
of looking. at Mars through the Lick
telescope should not ~neglectthe oppor-
tunity. Several years have elapsed
since this remarkable planet could be
seen to such advantage as at present,
and it will be three years before we
have an equal chance again. 1t has
certainly never been examined before
through a telescope of such power as
the monster refractor on Mount Hamil-
ton.
1t may be interesting to lovers of as
tronomy to know that the eminent
French astronomer, NJ. Perrotin, is en-
gagged in Il minute study of Mars, and
that his discoveries confirm those of NJ.
S%chiaparilli in every particular. 1t
seems actually rue that the Longitude
nal stripes which circle round the
planet are bodies of water, which must,
according to all laws of probability, be
artificial. No one ever saw or con-
kceiyed q system of parallel rivers from
1000 to 1000 miles long and straight
as plumb lines. Everything is possible,
of course, but such straight rivers it is
impossible to reconcile with the prin-
ciples of cosmogony as we understand
them. On this planet, at all events,
nature ablors . straight line, and by
analogy it should do so in Mars.
Yet, if these bodies Of water are
caualsS, as %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 a canal,
the time it must have taken, and the
number of workmen it must have en-
ployed. The pyramids of Egypt are
trifing in comparison. The Suez
canal is 1877 feet wide at the surface,
and the Nicaragua somewhat wider.
Our canals on this one horse globe are
considered long when they reach 100
miles in length. The Panama canal
will be less than sixty miles long. The
canals of Mars reach q length of 1000
miles-say as far as from here to
Omaha. What q traffic there must be
to support such enterprise! On the
waterways of China travellers describe
the incessant ebb and flow of multitu-
dinous crowds, but to require canals of
such dimensions Gs we have described,
the movement of traffic in Mars must
be far more p%rodigious. In fact, they
imply a population which almost stag
gers belief; Considering that the
volume of the planet is only one.eixth
that of the earth, the diameter being
LOO miles as against 5000 miles, they
warrant the widest coniectures as to
the density with which it may be
peopled.
What manner Of mar lives in Mars,
if there be men there, has always been
a fayorite topic of speculation. The
Cav of g%ravitation tells us that he may
be fourteen feet high-not such a son
of Anak as the inhabitant of the aster-
oids, bnt still one who would regard
the Belgian giant as o remarkable
dwarf. Possibly the enormous public
works on Mars may be explained on
the theory thaslthese tall fellows can
work in proportion to their stature
that one citizen of Mars can shovel as
much dirt as two and a half denizens
of this world.
Whether the grass Of Mars B red, as
the old astronomers averred, modern
telescopes have failed to decide. It is
very difficult to determin colors when
an object lens collects 10000 times as
much light as normally enters the hu-
mar eye. But the speculative astro-
homer is safe in asserting his belief
that Marian cabbages are of the color
of our beet roots, a no n can dis
prove the assertion.-San Francisco
Call.