The San Francisco call., 1909-10-03

solar system, and in the heavens there are countless
millions of other suns, each perhaps many certainly
attended by its swarm of planets.
Life, even conscious intelligent life, Aourishes
under the most diverse conditions this globe, and
it is hardly conceivable that among all the bodies of
the universe little planet is the only capable
of supporting some form of life.
While there many reasons for believing that
life may exist on other bodies of the universe, are
there any sufficient for supposing that life
actually does exist particular body? The fact
that many bodies may possibly sustain life does not
prove that Mars is inhabited The question in re-
gard to Mars is one of evidence, and the evidence
upon the canals Is there sufficient is there any,
evidence that the canals are artificial and that they
true canals?
CANALS OF MARS
The canals or so called canals of Mars were first
observed by the Milanese astronomer Schiaparel in
1877, and called by him canal" channels In
the next opposition of 1879 he confirmed this dscsv-
cry and discovered many canals At first he
likened them to the English channel, depicting them
on his first map as and winding channels sep
aratng the continents and dividing them into a
Der Of islands In each succeeding map however,
these channels became narrower straighter and
numerous until by 1888 the continents furrowed
by fine network of intersectng lines, which had
"all the distinctiveness OF an engraving steel"
Soon other observers confirmed the discovery of
of our most competent observers, though pro-
vded with the largest instruments and in the cearest
and best atmospheres, have been unable to the
fine network oHnes described in the latest papers of
Sehiaparell While traces of the larger and longer
channels can be found on the beautiful drawings by
Keeer, Campbell and Barnard, yet they do not show
the systems of radating lines seen by Schiaparelli
Flammarion and Lowell.
At the opposition of 1892 PrdRsssor Pickering of
Arequipa who recently suggceted the advisability of
flashing ten million dollar messzgeHHo the hypo-
thecal inhabitants of Mars at the ceRmFg Opposition
in September, detected only many of the canals
on Mars, bur small round spots the points of inter
section and streaks crossing the darker portions of
the planet AS these darker portions were formerly
supposed to be seas and oceans we were confronted
with the anomaly of channels in the midst of the sea-
but Pickering's observation robbed the seas and
oceans of their water and showed them be but diff
ferent coored portions of the planets disk AS Lowell
tersely expresses it, the sequence with regard to our
knowledge of the geography of Mars may be described
as follows:
"a surface thought at first to be part land, part
water; the land next be scanned with straits,
and lastly the sea made be land" This recalls
Galileo's theory, advanced in 1910 concerning the
dark markings on the moon which he supposed were
seas and oceans. but which now generally recog-
nized as vast desolate plains what is known to
be dead world
WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT MARS
Mars has been known and carefully studied from
prehistoric times. 1t completes circuit of the
heavens in about two wears. from which fact If is