Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1909-10-05
NOW IS YOUR CHANCE
TO W|GWAG At MARS
Planet Only Mere Matter of Thirty
Million Miles Away and Is
About to Leave Us.
LIFE THERE is HELD CERTAIN
Astronomers Find Conditions of At
mosphere Like Those of
the Earth.

II you wish to find out whether the
inhabitants of Mars use English or
talk in some sort of outlandish tongue,
you had better do it right away or
you will have to wait a decade and
half for another chance as good. Mars
has been right up close, almost at
hand-shaking distance, celestially
speaking, and now it is rolling away
again at the rate of several hundred
pay us another visit for fifteen years.
Mars is, of course, still 100000
miles or so away, and up to the hour
of going to press no enterprising avia-
tor had announced his intention of
making a Cook-Peary dash for it. The
going is far from good, say those fly
ing,machine experts who have navi-
gated the first two miles of the route,
and the scientists think the reception
such a venturer would receive would
be even cooler than the weather DR..
Cook found at the pole, and he would
be frozen. stiff before he got there.
Nevertheless the scientists have got
ten much satisfaction out of the neigh
both its poles with their own eyes, and
that is more than they can say of the
earth. They have seen the ice fields
slowly melt away during the summer
and grow gradually larger as cold
weather comes on. They are unit in
admitting that there is some form of
life on the planet, and with each new
advance in facilities for observation
they see things that make them think
the life is like that on the earth
There is no question that there is
life in some form On Mars" said Pro-
fessor Philip Fox, the new director of
Dearborn Observatory, in Chicago.
Nobody knows, of course, just what
form of life it is, but as we are able
to see more and more we learn of the
general conditions which must affect
this life, and the more nearly these
conditions approach those of the earth,
the closer will be the resemblance
of the life forms of the two
planets 1t is two years since Pro-
lessor Lowell announced that as the
result of a series of observations and
experiments he had detected the pres
ence of water vapor in the atmosphere
of Mars This means that Mars has
an atmosphere very much like the
earth's Atmosphere and temperature
are the main conditions affecting life.
With the instrument here l have seen
| the bright rings about the poles ex-
pand and contract with the advance
of the seasons. They must be ice and
snow; they couldn't be anything else.
And they must melt and freeze, ac-
cording as it, is summer or winter.
| This must mean that the temperature
Is practically the same as the earth's."
| instruments of the size of the
Yerkes telescope Professor Fox de-
| clared to be wastes in the dense at
mosphere of Chicago, the real center
Of astronomical observation being at
Flagstaff, Arizona, and the Lick OBJ
servatory, both located at high alti-
tudes At Flagstaff Prof. Lowell has,
had his eye glued to the great tele-
scope, and made nightly contributions
to the worlds knowledge of Marian
conditions.
! According to telegram sent out by
him he is able to observe the drying
up of the canals in what should cor
respond to the southern hemisphere of
the earth, and is more than ever con-
yinced that this phenomenon is sea-
sonal, and that the canals are artifi-
cial irrigation ditches,l denoting life
on the planet at least as intelligent as
| that of the earth