The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1916-02-15
IS PLANET MARS ALIVE?
A PUZZLE TO ASTRONOMERS

(lCci - II hdIb ID lIIdDlAtUt fIOI.
Yowell argues, the one supreme task
that engages the attention Of every
thinking being on the planet is the
utilization of that pathetically scant
supply of water. If 1t we're possible to,
conduct the water of the melting
SHOWS of spring to those portions Of
the torrid and temperate zones that
would still bring forth, If properly
nourished, race might save itself.
In the canals Prof. Lowell sees the
life lines of the planet. hey are to
him great irrigating trenches which
conduct the water of the melting
SHOWS to fertile fields thousands of
miles away.
No more forcible argument in favor
of this view can be advanced than
their appearance and arrangement. Ma
ture never works with mathematical
precision. Yet the canals have been
planned with mathematical foresight.
No whim governed the choice of their
direction. Invariably they terminate in
large well-defined spots, from which
they radiate like spokes from the hub
of wheel. If there were one spot, or
even two spots, to which pair of lines
converge, we might look on the phe-
nomenon as one of the natural features
of the planet. But when more than a
dozen lines run with geometrical d.
rectness to a single spot, and, when,
moreover, the spots themselves are
connected by lines and are in no sense
isolated, we must assume that an in
telligence has been at work.
Aptly enough the spots and lines are
distributed in the very regions where
to place them; in other words just
where water is needed. Were it not for
their staggering length (1,500 to 1000
miles), we should never see the canals
at ALL Viewed from distance of more
than 35,000,O00 miles even so large
city as Chicago or London would be
no longer than the head of pin. What
we see is not really a waterway, but,
as DR.. Pickering and DR.. Lowell has
pointed out, the vegetation that firing
es it's banks.
Curiously enough, the canals disap-
pear at intervals, only to re-appear
with their old clearness. On the face
of it this would seem in itself an un-
answerable refutation to any theory
which assumes that the canals are ir-
rigating bitches. 1t would be absurd
for hypothetical race of Martians to
, them again. But DR.. Lowell explains
the disappearance very simply What
we see is but the seasonal growth of
the vegetation along the banks. ime
is required for the water of the polar
seas to make itself felt; weeks must
elapse before sufficiently luXuriant veg
citation has sprung into being so that
the courses of the canals can be traced
| each spring and summer. And the pc
culiar manner in which the canals
seem to creep down from the poles at
the rate of two and half miles an
hour lends color to the explanation.
/ This elaborate network of sluices di-
vides the planet into plains of more or
less geometrical shape. Blue, green
and orange are the colors of these
plains-colors that proclaim the char
acter of the areas in question. The
blue-green areas are fertile regions fed
by the canals; the orange sections are
deserts, hopelessly arid. This distinc-
ton Prof. Lowell draws by reason of
the peculiar fluctuations in hue which
the blue-green patches undergo with
the advent of spring and winter.
That the spots toward which the
canals converge are the objective
points of Martian irrigation, is demon
strated by the scientific precision with
which the canals have been drawn to
meet them. Not solitary spot is any
where to be found. Three, four, six,
even seventeen, canals concentrate
their foods on a single spot. In diam
eter the spots range from 70 to l5O
miles. Like the canals they have been
designed with geometrical economy. If
there are cities on Mars it is not un'
likely that they are situated in these
spots.
Like the canals the spots disappear
with the approach of winter; but be-
fore they are extinguished the canals
have faded away. This is as 1t should
be. Before our time the spots were
thought to be lakes and were named
accordingly. Prof. Lowell regards
them as GASES studding the Martian
deserts. Lakes would have deepen in
color; only vegetation can cause the
characteristic fluctuations to which the
spots are subject.
The amount of ink that has been
spilled over the canals and their mean
ing would fill hogshead. Many as
tronomers deny that the canals exist