Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1892-04-20
ANNAPOLIS Md WEDNESDAY EVENING, APRIL 90, 1899.
LIFE on OTHER PLANETS.
PEcuLlARITIes occAsloNeO eY THE
DIFFERENCE IN SIZE.

What We Could DO and How We
WouId Appear oM the. Little Planet
Cerss-Ths Earth Fifty Ttmss Larger
--VisIons OF Fairy Land.
The first thing which most attracts our
attention about other planets. says q
writer in the Omaha World Herald, is
their very great difference in size, and
.his circumstance 10 the cause Of some Of
their most striking physical peculiarities.
Take. for instance, the little planet Ceres.
Our earth is small enough, only 7,9l2
uiles in diameter, but Ceres is only 100
miles.
These words may easily pass in at one
ear and out at the other without leaving
any impression behind; or. il they cause
US to think, we will wonder how easy it
must be to get from one country TO an
other, how delightful to be able TO sail
around the world, pay visit to ones
friends at the antipodes and be settled at
home again-all within the short space
Of two successive play days.
Butif we look at the subject little more
closely, we shall find that it involves far
more extraordinary consequences than
these. We know that while the earth
spins around, men, dogs, and horses, balls
aud stones hold on or fall to the earth,
This force which attracts matter to mat
ter is called gravity. or weight. 1t is
stronger in proportion to the amount OF
natter. and weaker in proportion to the
square Of this distance Of an object from
the center OF gravity.
Now, the diameter of the earth being
dfty times greater than that of Ceres, it
follows that boy here is fifty times
heavier than he would be on the little
planet. If he weighs one hundred
pounds here. he would weigh only two
pounds there. Boys could play at ring
taw with huge round boulders instead OF
marbles, and play football with balloons.
Girls could carry dolls as heavy as
their mothers, and strong bull would
be an easy load to bear. But things
stranger still would happen. We know
that il body be once set in motion it
will continue moving forever, il not
stopped by some external force. Thus,
when a boy leaps into the air, he would
60 to the moon and further, were it not
for the attraction of the earth, which very
soon pulls him down again.
But on the little planet Ceres this force
is so small that q boy might leap to an
enormous height before the attraction
would check his ascent. Jumping over
house-top would be as easy as playing
leap-frog, while good jumper would
think nothing Of clearing, with a short
run, the tower Of the new City Hall.
5taircases might be abolished, for even
stout old lady could easily jump in at q
,hird-story window. Nor have we yet
exhausted the wonders of Ceres.
We can imagine how uncomfortable it
must be for a man Of three hundred
pounds'Nweight TO walk, run or exert
himself Dut transport him to our queer
little friend Ceres, and he is at once at
Ease. In moment he becomes fifty
times lighter than he was-as light, in
fact, as a kitten. And he may proceed,
II he pleases, to astonish the acrobatic
natives of the planet by gymnastic ex-
oloits far surprising even their own.
Muscular exertion there goes fifty
times as far as it does here; aud the ex-
ploits men are capable of achieving there
must surpass the widest flights of fancy
and the most exaggerated visions Of
fairyland. Stronger than the vanquisird
Citans Of old, fetters OF iron would be to
them as threads of gossamer.
Like the genius Of the Arabian Nights.
they could spring from the earth to the
slouds at single bound, or clear half a
iozen miles at single leap The seven
league boots would no longer be a fable.
A boy could start on run around the
world and be back again before his
mother had finished signing out his
name; a racehorse could gallop 5000
miles an hour, while the sea would boil
and foam with the gambols Of its mighty
inmates. and the gigantic carcass of a
.eviathan extended for mile along the
deep.
If we reverse the circumstances and go
70 a planet larger than our own instead
of smaller, the case will, of course, be
exactly the opposite. If we were trans
ferred to the sun, we would be as much
,ut Of our element as the inhabitants OF
Ceres would feel here on earth and, in
fact, it will be readily seen that if the
sun is peopled with beings constituted
like ourselves, its population must, owing
20 the increased weight, consist OF dwarfs
two or three inches in height
Among them Tom Thumb would be q
covering giant in comparison. 1t is very
singular that the larger the world the
sflalIer the denizens must be, that the in
nabitants of the modest planet, earth,
should be men, those Of the huge sun,
iwarfs, and those Of the tiny asteroid,
Ceres, giants.