Grand Rapids herald. [volume] (Grand Rapids, Mich.) 1892-1959, 1892-07-29

Mas Vii 0e with uk GA TIE 81 proA
Not the ~Ariiks soa II Jupiter and
june. aot he wn., nlet dsfe.E IL Tue
cause q Doomed. not dc who lowered
kls Great before the intellectual ulight
of AthsnA- bat a great world Ike ours.
snothss planet with seasons and with
moons, with atmosphere and with life
Mara ~ili Bs II 800 miles from as.
nsarer than planet ever approached
plaaeE Ia the history Of the universe.
Bat this Il go miles FAUST be multiplied
very hesFily - get the actual distance.
II vii be II so miles VIA the great
Lick telescope oat $1,000, 0o0 niles If
yoa Naat - reach "a through space.
This -. 00o GU mark II % neax a. Mars
ever e0tues - the earth. and when il
starts on the circuit OF It's orbit IL man
ages u get TAI. 0O0, 90 miles away from
TanIIaaay aud the Mckinley bill - a
maximum dlstaaee. and then IL
comes back again 10 see il they
are sE.ll alive All this vast dis
tanoe, inooneeivsble By the pany
minds u puny men, 10 travelled over in
nfteen years % the lasst visit Ma in
1877 and the one before that la Is62-
And on those two Occasls.ns We learned
more about our next door neixhbor
than ia al the centuries Of civilization
before. In 1877 Astronomer Hall, of
Washington. sstonished the world by
Proclaining the discovery Of the moons
az Mars. and took away at the saIns
time the breath Of the scientis.5 and the
poetry out az the famous line:
snow poles of rnooni-ss Mars.
He named these lunar bodies Deimos
aud Phobos. For time he imagined
be saw innumerable moons cAvorting
through space about the planet. They
were going a. such rapid pace that
Mr.. Hall found IL pretty hard To keep
track OF them. But he finally noted
that the smaller one was within a very
few niles Of the planet and the larger
one far on. Bat il would be nnpossi BILE
~ squeeze third moon in between
Phobos and Mars There Is one thing
about Mars that will make the funny
tnsn weep. They don't know what a
full moon Is up there. Nor. at the poles
os the planet. do they ever catch even a
glimpse Of these lunar bodies. So the
Mars comic papers must have a hard
row % hoe
was asking an astronomer whether
An this period OF opposition il will real
ly be possible for Us 10 learn with def
initeness the nature OF the life in the
planet Mars
Hardly" said he. except from con-
ditions. Still. suppose we should see
the forty-seventh problem of Euclid
planet on some gigantic scale. IL would
BE- absolute evidence not alone of life.
but Of intelligent life; of y progressive
age like our own" -
Furthermore, Mars il an older planet
than ours There are those who claim
that we will And absolute evidence
during these observations OF its de-
cadence. Prof A Wincheu anirms that
Mars was habitablc nine and half
million years ago. and that our obser-
rations now will be convincing of its
-efrigcration- In fact Prof Winchell
p~serts that Mars Is no longer lingering
n the terrestrial stage, but has lost
IL water and atmosphere and is adj
sancod far toward total refrigeration
But Prof Holden. Prof. Hall, Prof.
eickering and Camille Flammarion op-
pose that theory and sdduce most inter
esting observations To prove that not
alone h there an atmosphere in Mars,
but that its climate is very much like
that of our own planet The melting
Of the Ice regions during the summer
period on Mars Is one Of the main argu-
ments advanced. Then. too, the spec
trum analysis has led to the inevitable
conclusion that the atmoephere on MARI