The Arizona sentinel., 1888-11-10
THE PLANET MARS.
Instructive and Pleasing Study of
That Little World.
Not Nearly So Large but Similar i'm Many
Respects TO the Earth-The Inun-
dation ThAory-Facts and
Conjectures.

Most people are more or less inter
ested in the affairs of their neighbors.
With some this interest is confined to
their street. With others the CHIEF
gossip does not travel beyond the small
circle of the country town or parish.
The number of people, however, labor
ing under these limitations of time
and place is not so great as it has
been; and with improved means OF
communication, other nations have
become our neighbors, and the affairs
of the globe our subject for small
talk. But even this is not enough.
We must set our fancies to work on
other worlds, revealed in vague yet
attractive detail to the larger eye of
our telescopes; and the caterer for the
public ear must now mingle tales of
the doings of ''lunatics" suggestive
title for the explorers of the moon
now famous in fiction-with the latest
scandal of the court and the alley.
So has the world grown, and our hori-
Zon of curiosity extended.
But, in sober earnest, we may well
take interest in neighboring planet
The crowning evidence of the truth of
the modern astronomy, in so far as
its views our earth and her sister
planets as the ever circling attendants
of the sun, came when Galileo caught
his first glimpse of the miniature sys-
TEN formed by Jupiter and his four
satellites. How great step was then
our history and destiny made possible,
we are only beginning to see. In the
moon we not only see changing lumi-
nary, but a 'face which is a book
wherein man may read strange mat
ters." The study reveals much to en-
Tighten us as to the past and future of
our own small world; while each
planet, at least of those nearer to us,
has its quota of information to give.
Among these, perhaps the most popu-
larly and humanity interesting is the
planet Mars, regarding which we pro-
pose to give our readers some informa-
tion which may be of general interest.
This little world, about half the
size of our own, is better
known and understood by astron-
0mers than any other, and,
by a strange coincidence, presents feat
ures in some points so like those which
our earth would exhibit if similarly
viewed, that it is hardly possible to
avoid the conclusion that it is habita-
BILE, if not inhabited, by beings some
what like ourselves. 1t was, then,
with more than mere scientific interest
that the astronomical world received
the startling report, recently sent out
on high authority, that a considerable
part of the planets surface had been
engulfed in its waters. Our readers
will probably be interested to know on
what general, as well as special, evil
dence this report is founded, and what
amount of weight is to be attached to
it. How do we know there are oceans
in Mars to engulf, and continents to be
engulfed by them? And what, in this
case, has led to the belief in some such
catastrophe?
Small as the planets disc appears to
our vision, it can be mapped in many
details with accuracy, though, per-
haps, if our readers were favored with
a glimpse of its disc through power
full telescope, they would not feel in
clined to grant this. Probably, their
first feeling would be either that the
telescope was bad, or the artists and
engravers of the planet sad deceivers.
Indeed, most of the published repre-
sentations of this planet are miserable
failures. Yet the delineator is not al
together to blame for this. The mark
ings of the planet are in most cases so
delicate that long practice is necessary
to trace them, and it is impossible to
represent them so as to be visible at all
in an engraving without considerably
adding to their distinctness.
But as the observers eye grew ac-
customed to the peculiar conditions of
hOAO5NOpAN fAoAOll, 1lC WOulu
perceive that the planets disc was
marked with faint blue and white on
ruddy ground. Probably this is about
all he would see without much prac-
tice. To the astronomer, however,
these blue and white markings present
distint outlines and easily recognizable
shapes. He isquite familiar with them,
for they do not change their form or
position. The alterations in successive
drawings of the planet have not been
due to change in these markings, but to
additional details revealing themselves
to more powerful telescopes and more
patient scrutiny. The chief of them
are all named and charted on the same
principles as the continents and oceans
of the earth.
Are they, then, seas and inlets, bays
and CULTS, polar ice-caps and glaciated
islands? The cautious astronomer will
only answer: Most probably" Let
us see what can be said in support of
this answer,