The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-12-21
RECORDS OF THE EARTH
BUDGET OF FACTS ABOUT
PLANET ON WHICH WE LIVE.
ALSO some 0thers-Earth 10 the
heaviest and Jupiter the Largest.
/ Burglars in Mars-Certain
G. That Saturn IL Destitute
+, of Animal LATE.

II you put down the figure s, and ade
after 1T twenty-one thoughts. you have
the approximate weight in tons Of the
world we live In. In proportion to size
shere is only one planet that 10 heavier
than the earth-that is little Mercury
says The Chicago Tribune. Taking the
Asnaity of the earth as /, that of Mer-
curry is l.26. No other member of the
solar system. not even the sun itself,
can compare with our globe In weight.
Jupiter. tina largest Of all the planets,
o. 100 times as big az the earth. but
only 800 times M heavy.
Mercury holds the two records for be-
snR heaviest, bulk for bulk. Of all the
plhnets, and Of being nearest the sun.
Buk Ia an other respects the earth beats
Ct. Mercury 10 only three times rs big
AZ the moon II has little or no atmos-
phays and. therefore. equally little wa
ter worst thAa al II seems fairly Ger
Aaan that Il no longer revolves on its
axis nhs eur planet, but resembles the
moon In turning enc face always toward,
she sam
Tue nearest Of all the planets 70 our
Iweawes is not as 10 usually imagined,
tzzasA nuk Venus. We can see the at
xAosphsrs e Versus Auriug its oesasioaal
&anaiHs aoross the swnis disk. Venus
4lso resembles ehs earth nearly in Asiss
ai1G W&a4ht.
NxtTemss Of Hsst and Cold.
Yet Venus must be 9 poor place to
i've In compared with our world. It's
axis - Tilted IN q most surprising fash
ton, with results that can hardly be pleas
ant fer her inhabitaats. The arctic re-
gicns must be considerable in extent.
and thsFe o beaHin9 day OF half q year
must be succeeded By q night OF unpar-
alleied cold Of the same length. In her
tropieal regions cold ana heat must also
succeed one another with startling sud
denness. Her temperate zones must suf-
fer from similar severe changes. making
. climate which no human being could
withstand.
Mars IL nearly 5o,oOo.oOo miles farther
from the sun than ourselves, yet IL 20
much Isss hidden by clouds that We can
tall q great deal more about that plan
cts shape and make than about any
other members of the solar system. And
the more we learn the more certain we
feel that our next nsighbor on the out
side can not compare with the earth.
Here out OF 100 square miles seventy-two
are water and twenty-sisht are land. In
Mars water Is 30 scarce that it 10 prob
ably boarded with the greatest care.
MarttaAs who want to travel can not
take ship. They must journey overland.
Nor 10 II likely that airships can be uSed,
as the Marian atmosphere Is extremely
thin. In fact a human being on Mars
would probably suffocats unless he were
provided with oxygen cylinders like those
6alIoonistS use.
Burglars Would Thrive in Mars.
Another disadvantage of Mars from a
human point of view must be The dark
ness of the nights. True. Mars has two
moons to our one. but they arc both % alb
eurdly small that they can not be of
much use 10 illuminate the Martian nights
Neither Mercury nor Venus has any
moons at all.
The changes in the Martian climate are
much more severe than in our own. The
south polar icscap of Mars at the end
of May has been noticed to be as much
as 200 miles across. BY the following
December 10 1t had shrunk to nothing.
The year of Mars being e87 days long
allows yearly changes of climate on a
greater scale than our own.
As for the other planets Of our system,
It lie almost certain that no creature be-