The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-08-19
THE MARTIANs.
Are They Really Trying to Attract our|
 Attention?

HIS AurStlOl Is dSaAA SAoH6AI tg ehS
 front by the announcement that Pros lessor Lowell-who of all living astron- omers knows most about the red planet has just observed a brilliant projec-
 tfon from the edge of Its disk. The
 brilliant imaginations of Mir. H. C..
 Wells have familiariZed us all with the
 possibilities of life on Mars. and no one
 who has read '"The War of the Worlds
 can held shuddering slightly when he
 remembers that just such projection
 indicated the commencement of that
 terrifying invasion. Let us be reas- sured. Astronomers will tell us that. however realistic MT. Wells story seemed, it is practically impossible that
 mankind should ever have to fight for it's life against a Martian army, and the hypothesis that what Professor Lewell saw was the flash caused by the
 firing of a huge gun at the earth may be put out of court.
 It is with less certainty, however, that we can decide that the signal the- ory is equally impossible. Indeed, one can hardly go so far as to say that 1t is entirely inadequate to explain this pros jection, though the improbability of its
 being intended for our notice and pros
 duced by quasi-human agency is con-
 siderable. In the first place, astrono-
 mers admit that the existence of life
 somewhat akin to our own on Mars is
 highly probable. ..... ',...
 In the nature of things, there is no
 ground for supposing that the earth
 should be the only planet on which ev-
 olution has run the course which hap
 pens to have resulted in producing our
 noble selves Setting aside the hypoth-
 esis of a special creation and a Divine
 reason for favoring the earth beyond
 any other planet-which may be true,
 but is not amenable to discussion by the light of that ordered reason which
 we call science, we can all see at once l that, if all the planets are but cooled | and hardened portions of the same orig
 inal nebula, the real marvel would be
 not that life should exist on other plan
 cts, but that 1t should have come into
 being on the earth alone. Similar causes must be assumed to produce similar effects. though man is | too apt to think that an exceptional in 1 terest and merit attach to the inconsid- erable planet that has had the honor of bearing him. @.,.. .eS
 If, then we must assume the proba-
 bility that there are other worlds than ! ours," other sentient beings within the l limits of our system, where are we to ! look for them?
 Every argument points to Mars as the most likely place. The other planets are too far from the sun for such life as ! we know to maintain itself upon them; in the remote coldness of Neptune or 1 Uranus only algae or bacteria could
 live with any comfort, and imagination
 refuses to conceive a civilized society oi l typhoid germs. Jupiter is almost cer-
 tainly in state of red heat, and one might as well try to live in a Dutch | oven as where Mercury swims in the l sunbeams. The minor planets, those ! disjected members of a planet that never was" are barred by our know
 ledge of physics, which tells us that
 not even the largest of them can pos
 sess any vestiges of an atmosphere; ] while the smaller ones are so ill-proyi- I ded with gravitating force that an or | dinary mans jump would take him away into infinite space. It would be
 Trash, perhaps, to assert that life with l out an atmosphere is impossible, but we
 cannot conceive 1t. 'ss s.~,,s There remain. then, only our tive | nearest neighbors, Mars and Venus, as ! the possible homes of such life as we
 can imagine to exist in conditions not too utterly unlike our own. 3 ~<
 l There are grave difficulties in the way of studying Venus from this point of | view, and attention has been concertra- ted on Mars, where some eminent as. | trononers believe that they have found | evidence for the existence of intelligent | beings. The evidence is rather thin, irl- | deed, consisting mainly in the denen- | stration that Mars is suited for the ex- I istence of life. Tn the first place Mars | possesses an atmosphere, much more | rarified than our oWn-its pressure Is probably not more than two or three pounds to the square inch, correspond. ing to a barometric reading of five ol
 six inches of mercury-but still con.
 ceivably adequate to support life that
 had been developed in It. though man ! transported hither would equally be un.
 able to survive without a diving cos. | tune. This is proved not only by spec. troscope observations which have
 shown the presence of an atmosphere containing water vapor, but by the reg. ular waxing and waning of the white I patches of snow that surround the Mar. tian poles. Tn other physical respects Mars Is essentially similar to the earth l and it requires no great stretch of i'm agination to see how the human consti tuition could be modified to live there Sa far the evidence for life on Mar:
 confines itself to asserting it's possibill. ty. Direct evidence of it's presence has
 been sought, and, as some hold, witl
 success. This consists mainly in thu apparently regular change of certain features of the planets surface, whicf is attributed by MT. Lowell and other!
 to the action of intelligent beings
 These are the well-known 'canals'
 seen in the best telescopes as network of lines on the Martian surface, whiel
 at certain seasons of the year appear t be duplicated.
 Some observers maintain that the. are simply an optical delusion-that tn
 wish to see them is father to the ebser walton. But little positive evidence il such matters outweighs much mega
 tive: if two or three men have seer lsuch a thing, it is a poor answer tha ' lfu4..l A