The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-03-30
LIFE ON THE
 PLANET VENUS.
Scientist Thinks, the Earth's Nearest Neighbors May Teem With Pre-
 historic Monsters.

That the planet Venus. the nearest of the eartl1s celestial sisters, may be populated by millions of huge prehis- toric monsters and lizards, such as roamed the earth 100000 years ago, is the astounding assertion which has just been put forward by Prof. Will liam H. Pickering of the Harvard University astronomical department.
 Prof Pickering's statement comes as complementary to the startling an- nouncement made by Prof Thomas States Navy Observatory, at Mare Isl and, Cal, who recently has given out word that intelligent creatures such as might be called 'shuman', now popu- late Venus.
 Prof. Pickering, keenly alert to all assertion of this nature, particularly when coming from one of the most authoritative of Uncle Sam's star gaz- CTS, is doubly interesting from the fact that for a number of years he has been gathering observations which lead him to a belief in the "life' the ory upon Venus.
 Already astronomers of the world are beginning to ask their centuries of baffled investigation whether the mystery among planets is about to be solved.
 Has Prof. See finally pierced the belt of atmosphere that surrounds this nearby world like a pail? What sort of intellectual creatures has he found? Is there chance that com- munication can be established with them, the plan for which was set forth by Prof William Pickering. as was proposed in the case of the plan ct Mars a little more than a year ago?
 Prof Pickering offers the opinion that Venus may be the scene to-day of the life the earth knew far back in the advent of man. In other words Pleistocene and earlier periods, before the cloud banks that have shut off hitherto the gaze of human astrono- mers, may conceal the vision of a planet of interminable steam1ng swamps in which welter and wallow great reptilian creatures of the kind whose fossils are dug up to-day thous- ands of feet below the surface of the earth.
 This theory has been held tentative ly by Prof Pickering for many years, and, therefore he is all the more in- terested by the news that Prof. See has found the higher forms of life on the mysterious planet. As to the pos sibility of this Prof. Pickering says:
 Certainly there are many physical reasons for thinking that if any Oth CT. planet beside the earth is inhabit- ed it is probably Venus.
 Ut is about the same size as the earth, and it's density is about the same The force of gravity upon it's surface is only slightly less than that of the earth. It has been estimated that roughly speaking, the gravity of Venus as compared with that of the earth is as S5 to 100 We feel reason ably sure that at the planets surface the atmosphere is many times that of our own.
 sevanus is tha nearest tO uS of the planets being about 30OO0, 900 miles away but we have experienced diff culty in studying it as closely as Mars.
 "When Venus is nearest the earth the planet lies between us and the sun. When Mars is nearest us it is easily observed. Another and even greater impeachment to the observation of Venus is that she is always cloud wrapped.
 'This has prevented us from making many observations that we would like and as far as we have noted here at Harvard we have distinguished only slightly larger markings that were ev- idently on the cloudwrapping of the planet.
 "For this reason I cannot express my opinion on Prof. Sees announce ment of his belief in the existence of life there until he gives out the ob- sion.
 "The clouds and dense atmosphere prevent, Or have prevented, anything like the close observation that has been made of Mars. Of course, when everything Is taken into consideration. Venus does seem more capable of sup porting life than any other planet ex- cept the earth What that life is however. is quite another question for the time Prof. See's theory, which may be based on obser- vation such as I cannot attempt to guess.
 t'The temperature of Venus is prob ably the same as in our own tropics, and the dense atmosphere may be of