The Portland daily press., 1888-05-12
the RED PLANET.
Specuiations About the Canals of
Mars and Their Builders.
lsan Francisco CALL

lSan Francisco Call.
People who can obtain the privilege OF
looking at Mars through the Lick telescope
should not neglect the opportunity Several
years have elapsed since that remarkable
planet could be seen to such advantage as at
present, and it will be three years before we
have an equal chance again. lthas certainly
never been examined before through "a tele-
scope of such power as the monster refractor
on Mount Hamilton.
1t may be interesting to lovers Of astronomy
to know that the eminent French astrono-
mer, M. Perrotin, is engaged in minute
study of Mars, and that his discoveries con-
firm those of NJ. Schiaparilli in every par
ticular. 1T seems actually true that the longi-
tudinal stripes which circle round the planet
are bodies OF water, and must according to
all laws of probability, be artificial. No one
ever saw or conceived system Of parallel
rivers from 1000 to 1000 miles long and
straight as plumb line. Everything is pos
sible. 0s course, but such straight rivers 1t Is
impossible to reconcile with the principles of
cosmogony as we understand them. On this
planet, at all events, nature abhors q straight
line, and by analogy it should do so In Mars.
Yet, If these bodies Of water are canals as
Schiaparilli believed and Perrotin seems
hardly to doubt, what monstrous works they
Fancy the labor Of digging such canal. the
time 1t must have taken, and the number Of
workmen it must have employed. The. py-
ramids of Egypt are trifiing in comparison.
The Suez Canal is 1877 feet wide at the sur
face. and the Nicaragua Canal is to be 150
feet; the Martial canals are $500 times 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
60 miles long. The canals of Mars reach a
lQnOth of o 000 mi q for a Q from hara
to Omaha. What traffic there must be to
support such enterprisesl On the waterways
of China travellers describe the incessant ebb
and flow of multitudinous crowds, but to re-
quire canals of such dimensions as we have
described, the movement OF traffic in Mars
must be far more prodigious. In fact, they
imply population which almost staggers
belief, considering that the volume of the
planet is only one-sixth that of the earth,
the diameter being 4, 400 miles as against 600
miles, they warrant the widest conjsctures
as to the density with which it may be
peopled.
What manner of man lives in Mars, if there
be men there. has always been favorite
topic of speculation. The law Of gravitation
tells us that he may be IA feet high not such
a son of Anak as the inhabtant of the aster-
oids, but still one who would regard the Bel
gian giant as a remarkable dwarf. Possibly
the enormous public works on Mars may be
explained on the theory that these tall fel-
lows can work in proportion to their stature
that one citizen of Mars can shovel las
much dirt as two and half denizens of this
world.
Whether the grass of Mars is red, as the
old astronomers ayerred, modern telescopes
have failed to decide. 1t is very difficult to
determine colors when an object lens collects
thirty thousand times as much light as norm
ally enters the human eye. But the specula-
tive astronomer is safe in asserting his belief
that Ma1tian cabbages are of the color of our
beef-roots, as no one can disprove the asser-
tiOn