The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1892-10-29
gleluHeoRs lN MARS.
vet Men There weigh Ncxt TO Moth
aud Are Wonderfully ATIie.

vet Men There Weigh Ncxt to Nothing
aud Are Wonderfully Aglie.
Mars weighs bus one ninth of what
the earth weighs and therefore. objects
| of n given mass weigh here ntne times
AS much as they would weigh IL taken
to Mars For example, our standard
silver dollar OF 412l5 grains would
weigh but 45.S grains in Mars. and
would doubtless be refused by the Mar.
tians If rendered in the payment Of
debts, public or private 1t follows,
| however, from the lesser power of tho
| force of gravitation in Mars that it is a
paradise for fat men. The reason that
the elderly person gets tired sooner
| than the small boy is not that the
muscles of his legs are inferior, but that
they have more to carry The fat per
son here has as powerful muscles as he
had when lean, out they have greater
weight to bear and they tire under it
Iu Mars 10 is different There our stoul
person of 800 pounds would weigh bul
33b, legs and all, so that he could trir
along with his present muscles as light
| ly as a kitten. Even the "fat lady" OF
the museum could easily do her twenty
miles day and not feel it. Agility, we
may assume, with vivacity as its accom-
panying virtue, is characteristic o.
the people of Mars. Doubtless the Mar
tians, owing to the light burden or
their legs, grow taller than we do, anG
are larger and more powerful every
way. Weight restricts development
The strength of muscle and bone may
be exceeded if an animal exceeds Ger
tain size.
In the sea the whale grows larger
than any terrestrial creature because
the water bears him up. Like the bi
cyclist, he has only to propel himself
by moving his legs-that is to say, hi.
fms II man lived in the sea he might
grow much larger than he does. In
Mars he could, with the same strength
| of muscle and bone, grow nine times as
large as he does here. A man fifty-foul
feet in height, with corresponding
development in other directions, would
be a powerful animal He would be
capable of doing an incredible amount
Of work per day. Citizens of such pro-
portions might very well undertake the
colossal canals with which the surface
CT Mars is 50 striSingly marked.
These canals signify the astonishing
strength and energy of the Martians.
They are supposed to point also to
pathetic necessity. Their planet, weak
in gravity, is weakening now in all the
natural forces. Its heat is rapidly de-
parting. Its crust is cooling, and as it
cools it's strata, like those of our moon,
absorb the water of its oceans. The
astronomers of Mars foresee a coming
time when all the water and atmo-
sphere of their planet will disappear,
beng absorbed, as in the case of our
moon, by the. chilled material of its in
terror. They have dug their canals in
large part, it is believed, to bring the
water of their shrinking oceans to their
tamished lands. Originally undertaken,
perhaps, as waterways, these canals
are supposed to be now vastly deepeued
channels for the conveyance of the
water required for irrigation and for
drinking purposes The extent and ex-
treme width of the excavations stag
gers belief; but it will be remembered
that Mars is much older than the earth,
and that with the Martians it is now
dig or die.
So they dig, and they dig double
lines They parallel every waterway,
possibly to avert the calamity of want
of water over their vast continental
areas in case one of the canals should
get stopped up by landslide. 1t has
been doubted whether the canals of
Mars are really double, but the astrono-
mers of the Lick observatory say they
observed them on the night of August
II with their incomparab telescope,
and testify that they are "distinctly
double" They add that they are per
fectly straight lines passing through
the continents from sea to sea-" As
canal in Mars would have to be twenty
miles wide to be visible with our best
telescopes, it is evident that the Mar
tians must have given much attention
to engineering There is no evidence
that they have used steam or electricity
for transportation or for industrial pur-
poses Being under the necessity of
having large water supply, it is pos
sible that they have not found it to pay
to use powers other than water power.
Besides, a land much intersected by Gu
nails of vast width and depth could not
well develop an extensive railway sys-
TEN. Without coal-there is no evi-
dence that Mars had carboniferous
period-the manufacture of steam en-
gines could make but little progress.
AS respects electricity, the thinness
of the atmosphere of Mars would, it is
believed, interfere materially with the
efficiency of dypamos The electricity
would be dispersed somewhat, Us it is in
a vacuum tube, before it could do useful
work. There could be little magnetism,
it is plain, because the planet, besides be-
ing frozen at both ends and cold in the
middle, gets few rays of the sun-the
source of all energy in our system. 1t
is improbable, in fact, that the Martians
have ever given much attention to the
subtler sciences. They have given their
minds wholly to canals, and canal dig
ging is not an elevating employment
Baltimore Sun.
The American AK.
All the world admires and wonders at
the mo ripon ax hp1vn rha Atnar;oau