The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-07-21


 w the apple of the eye of Martian life-what corresponds with us to centers of population.
 An interesting .prenomenon about the oases makes this the more probable. Ob- servation discloses that the oases are given to change of size and tone. They fade at certain seasons, retaining only a relatively diminutive dark kernel. They are thus formed of two parts, pulp and core The pulp itself indicates vegetation, since it follows the same laws as the ca nals; the core may well be the evidence of the permanent population. That they are the largest some 10 miles across, seems to give sufficient space for living and the means to live. If our cities had to be their own sources of supply, they might well be of this size. As it is, Tokio | is ten miles by ten and London yet larger But we must in this be careful to part surmise from deduction.
 l In our exposition of what we have gleaned about Mars. we have been careful
 to indulge in no speculation. The laws Of rhysics and the present knowledge or geology and biology affected by what as ] ironomy has to say of the former subject, have conducted us, starting from the ob- | servations, to the recognition Of other lh- I lelligent life. We have carefully consld- | cred the circumstantial evidence in the case, ana we have found that it points to | Intelligence acting on that other globe, ana S incompatible with anything else. We
 have. then, searched for motive and have | t1uIl ly avn a IS.
 the evidence that observation offers. Wo are justified, therefore, in believing that we have unearthed the cause and our con
 clusion is this; that we have in these
 strange features, which the telescope re.
 veals to us, witness that life, and life of no mean order, at present inhabits the
 planet.
 1 Part and parcel of this information Is
 the order of intelligence involved in the beings thus disclosed Peculiarly impress 1 slve is the thought that life on another world should thus have made its presence
 known by its exercise of mind. That in- 1elligence should thus murely commuhi- | cate it's existence to us across the far
 stretches of space, itself remaining hid,
 appeals to all that is highest and most 1 far reaching in man himself. More satis- | factory than strange this; for in no other l way could the habitation of the planet l have been made known to us. It simply l shows again the supremacy of mind. Men | five after they are dead by what they
 have written while they were alive, and
 the inhabitants of a planet tell of them selves across space as do individuals I athwart time, in the same mind manner. Thus, not only do the observations We have scanned lead us to the conclusion | that Mars at this moment in inhabited, 1 but they land us at the further one that l these denizens are of an order whose ac ouaintance was worth the making. Whether we ever shall come to converse
 with them in any more instant way IS d
 question upon which science at present 1 has no data to decide. More important to HIS is the fact that they exist made ail | the more interesting by their precedence | of us in the path of evolution. Theic uresence certainly ousts us rom any
 unioue or self-eentered position Tn the solar system, but so with the world did
 the Copernican system the Ptoiemaic' and the world survived this deposing change. l .o ,,.v man. To all who have cos n,onlanetary breadth of view 1t cannot be pregnant to contemplate extra-mundane