The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-10-18
hundreds and thousands of years away.
Nor would anything be gained in this re-
snect hy sustitutinu for luminous SIGNALS

hundreds and thousands of years away
Nor would anything be gained in this re-
spect by Substituting for luminous signals
those of some other kind-electricnl, for in
through the AMI ''ether'' by which light is
transmitted, and through it all other kinds
of disturbance travel with the same speed.
We mny add that at present it is a mere
gratuitous assumption that the stars are
accompanied by planetary systems, n
that these systems are inhabited. But,
granting their existence, there is not the
least reasonable ground to hopa that We
shall ever be able to communicate with
their inhabitants.
While, however, the great majority of the
heavenly bodies are 90 hopelessly beyond
our reach, a few are nearer. Az compared
with the stars, the planets, which, like the
earth, circle around the sun are %neiQhbors.
and the moon is a bed-fellow. May we not
| reasonably hope to be able to establish
some communication with our fellow
I planets even if the stars are inaccessible?
Two Of the planets, Mars and Venus, are
not very unlike the earth in size. and at
times come within q distance which, COM
pared with the distance of the sun even, is
small-Venus within 25, 100000 of miles
and Mars within 5000, 900. Venus, in
deed, seems to be wholly cloud-clad, and
therefore unreachable by any signal we
could send, to say. nothing of the peculiar
features of her constitution and axial rota-
ton which make it difficult to suppose
that she has any inhabitants who could
read them. But Mars shows land and seas,
and clouds and, storms of rain and snow,
and seems to be a world where, II anywhere
among all the orbs the telescope reveals, life
of a kind Ineligible by US might be supposed
to exist. If we have brothers there can we
not in sone way speak to them and get a
rePW,y s can only say, mot yet-no, for a
long time. if ever" Even 36,0OO,OOO or
miles, though 80 insignificant u distance
compared with that of the nearest star, is 4
space too wide to be bridged by any prac-
ticabie means we yet possess, even If we
knew that on the other side persons like
ourselves, and familiar moreover with all
Pour ideas and languages and telegraphic
codes, were Watching for signals from US
with Telescopes as good as the best OF ours.
IL we assume 5000 AS the highest avail
able telescope power-and under che most
favorable circumstances this Ia about the
utmost limit for the great telescope of the
Lick observatory then Mars, when near
est to us, viewed with this owe upon 4
perfect telescope, and under perfect at
mospheric conditions, would appear rs IT
seen by the unnided eye from u distance OF
about 10000 miles. Objects fifteen or
twenty miles ao1oss would be just at the
limit Of visibility. II may perhaps DO
thought that by some Photographic process
the image of the planet might DO secured
aud then enlarged to almost any extent,
aud so the difficulty surmounted; this
would be conceivable (but not practioable),
we're it not for the fact that light consists
Of waves, which, though minute, are by no
means infinitely 30. Az a consequences the
image of a distant point, made by a per-
feet lens even, could suoh a lens be con
structed, ia not Il mathematical point. but
a dot of calculable magnitude having hazy
edges, tringel with so-cnlled "diffraetion
rings;'' il Is indistinct to u certain extent,
aud tho same is true Of course of the telo-
scopic image Ms n whole. We soon reach,
therefore, a limit at which the secondary
enlargement OF m original image ceases to
bring out anything new-and this indie
pendent of tho fact that the granular
structure Of any known Photographic film
now limits us still moto narrowly.
II ia perhaps not absolutely impossible
that 1T our hypothetical relatives upon the
planet Mars were TO constructs a series OF