The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-13
LIFE IN NEARBY PLANETS.
If Man Exists lie Must he Provided
with singular lungs.
From The London Spectator.

From the London Spectator.
The discovery of the philosophers stone,
supposing that phrase to imply a working
scheme for transmitting an inferior metal
into gold, would probably produce nothing
beyond period of terrible economic con-
fusion, or, perhaps vast and disastrous,
because overrapid, transfer Of property,
but the attainment of certainty that sem
tent beings with corporal incasements,
acting by effort and not by pure volition,
existed In any other planet would only
enlarge the range Of human thought and
the forc Of the human imagination. Such
a certainty would either increase to an ex-
traordinary degree the reverence for the
Creator-for we are all so limited that we
reverence powers which we see exerted
more than powers which we know in the
ory must exist-or would compel materials
to revise and widen their whole theory Of
the relation OF matter to mind It being
evident that sentence could exist under
conditions hitherto deemed impossible.
There are certainly millions, and possi-
bly billions. of worlds of which no two
are the same, and IL sentlent beings were
found past question in any other world
than ours the presumption that they ex-
listed under a variety of conditions ana
probably, therefore, In variety OF forms,
practically unlimited would become so VIC
lent that TO reject the theory would soon
be regarded as an evidence of foolish,
popular habit of disbelief in the unseen.
Man has some internal dislike to believe
that limited beings with sentence can ex-
list under conditions other than his own,
and habitually assumes that a world with
out air is a dead world. Yet there Is no
proof that the ether. which we know TO
be everywhere, cannot support life, or that
circumstances of which we know nothing
may not modify either its intolerable cold
or the effect of that cold.
In Mars itself there Is some potency at
work which, TO the despair for the moment
OF terrestrial science, produces warmth
where cold ought to reign permanently SUI
preme IL Is as certain as any deduction
from analogy can be that air In Mars,
though Il exists. Is as rarihed as 1t would
be at the top of a mountain twice as high
as Mount Everett. and that consequently
the normal and permanent degree OF cold
ought to be terrible.
The thermal income Of Mars Is less than
half that OF the earth, and its theoretical
mean temperature Is consequently-taking
into account its low "albedo" or reflective
power per unit of area-thirty degrees CEN
Upgrade below freezing. Yet the actual eli
mate of Mars is mild Snow certainly
melts rapidly-that is patent to the tele-
scope-vapor certainly rlses-that Is clear
from the spectrum analysis-water flows
and there are Indications. n not proofs
that a sudden vegetation follows the sud
den thawing of the snow. What warns
the air Is unknown, but II is warmed past
all question or doubt. ana all arguments,
therefore, as 10 the inevltableness Of cold
IN other worlds must be pronounced i'm
perfect, as are those which show the i'm
possibility of sustaining corporal life
All we can say with certainty Is that, II
list in Mars, the relation of the lungs OF
the body cannot be identical with their re-
lation In nfan, which, as we are aware OF
fishes, is not an impossible exercise Of the
imagination.