Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1916-10-24
The Men of Mars Again.

The distinguished astromer, DR.. Percival
Lowell, head of the Harvard observatory at Flag
staff, Arizona, announces as the latest deduction
from his studies of the planet Mars that the So
called canals are really vast strips of vegetation
cultivated by human beings or at least, by intelli-
gen. beings akin to mankind, and watered by con-
duits invisible from the earth. The smallest OBJ
servable spot Mars, DR.. Lowell contends, would
be not less than ten miles in diameter; wherefore
canals, as we know them, could not be seen by us
on a planet which at its nearest approach to the
earth is some thirty-six million miles away. But
inasmuch as these peculiar lines on the Marian
landscape laid out too strictly and connected
too obviously to suggest rivers earth assures,
he concludes that they the work of artifice
rather than of nature.
These bewildering channels which seam the
surface of Mars range in length from one hundred
and fifty to thirty-five hundred miles, and have an
average breadth of about thirty miles. They con-
meet dark spots of less than one hundred and fifty
miles in diameter.
'.Not infrequently,' says student of the
subject, "half dozen canals radiate from
single spot, going straight to other spots and
most of the canals choose the shortest path
from one spot to another; few curved
Some do not run from small dark spot to
from a small spot to large area, or occasion
ally connect two other canals The most mys-
FERROUS fact about them is that they become
double at times the two new canals being
about two hundred miles apart, and veritable
twins Schiaparelli (the astronomer who first
noted the markings in 1870 thinks that the
doubling may be periodical, and connected in
some way with the planets seasons"
The theory that these markings a result or
oil Of
natural processes leans partly on the planets ap-
parent dearth of water. The permanent water area
of Mars is estimated to be only about half great
as the Mediterranean wealth and variety
of detail on the planets surface is visible the
terrestrial observer; this would be impossible but
for the variety of clouds on. Mars. Furthermore,
the dark areas, commonly regarded SEAS
not of a permanent form or extent, but are sub
Ject to noticeable increases and diminutions. OBJ
seryations made in the summer of 1892 when Mars
was comparatively near the earth showed that as
one of the polar ice or snow caps of the planet
melted a portion of the area between the cap and
one of the seas became dark, the at the same
time increasing in size. Such phenomena taken in
connection with the Canals, give color to the sup
position that the Martians, If Martians there be,
have contrived a system of irrigation for a planet
that otherwise might be for the most part an arid
waste
The presence of human life, or life in any wise
resembling what we call humanity, on Mars is, of
course purely cOnjecturaL The extreme rarity of
the planets atmosphere makes it probable, in the
opinion of most students that if terrestrial in
habtant suddenly transported to Mars he
would gasp and expire Neither Imagination nor
reason however, is limited to the supposition that
i'm all the universe the earth is the only planet
peopled by intelligent beings; indeed, reason as
we'll as imagination points to just the contrary
idea. Prof. T. J. See the astronomer in charge of
the naval observatory at Mare Island California,
has ventured the opinion that living beings exist
wherever a star Wrinkles