Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-01-07

WASHINGTON, u. q, jan. o
All of the latest ientlh uope VI
that most interesting OIL all piahetS'
| Mars. is conveniently gathered To-
gether in a recent pupIlcatioh on
| the subject by Professor Wllilaih n.
pickering, who has charge Oh tho
| Harvard Astronomical Statlon III %
| maica, and who has vot iiucl
of his time to looking at Mars
| through a telescope n speculatlIs
about conditions on the sister plan
ct. ~
Like most strictly scientific eve
Ia tions what Professor Pickering
| has TO say is somewhat di~sillusionlng
TO the layman. Mars has held hlSh
place in the popular imagination 1or
n long time. 1t has been generally
| assumed that Mars is inhabited by
| intelligent beings, something ike
men,. How these beings differ from
us and how they resemble u.s.
whether we can hope ever to com
I municate with them-these ques-
| tons fire even the dullest magma
tion. All sorts of fantasies have
been based on imagined visits OF
Martians to the world, or of inhao-
itants of the world to Mars.
Whether Mars is inhabited by in
telligent beings is a highly debatable
question, as Professor Pickering
shows. but it is extremely probable
that life in some form exists on
| Mars. That alone is enough to Keep
human curiosity about IL at the
highest pitch. Men have been
| ~souinting 1t Mars for centuries, hnd-
| ing out more and more about II as
| their instruments improved. Inere
| is now an association of Marian op-
servers who look at the planet from
all different parts of the eartn ana
exchange observations and opinions.
Professor Pickering himself a
worked out in theory a giant hello
eraph by means of which it would
be possible to signal the inhabitants
of Mars, provided they are intelh.
gent beings with as much power oil
sight as we have
A Trip to Mars.
The time may yet come when we
will get daily communicatlons from
Mars. After all. at times 1t Is only
$4,000, 600 miles away. Should a
means of travelling through inter-
stellar space with a supply OF canned
oxygen even be perfected, as II Wen
might, an expedition to Mars wouid
doubtless be launched. An aero
plane travelling at the rate or n
hundred miles an hour might reach
Mars in about forty years, provided
it set out at the right time. The
chief of the expedition, a youth OF
twenty. would carry with him a Few
promising infants of both sexes, aged
about one year. These would be
men and women at the helghe Oh
their maturity when Mars was
reached. They would do the obserV-
ing, and their progeny would carry
the dope back to earth. along with
a delegation of Martians. The en-
tire operation need not consume
more than three generations.
II is only fair to add that PROBES
sor Pickering is not responsible 1ol
any of the above speculations. nc
did invent the signaling system, IL Is
true. but he does not seem to be al
all sure that there is anyone OF
Mars worth corresponding with.
y Although the scientists have th'
greatest difficulty in ascertalnlns
what kind of life there is on Mars
they are able to supply a SURPRISING
amount of information as to hvint
conditions there. When the Martlal
expedition sets sail, science VII
probably not be able to tell the
members what sort of creatures the!
will encounter, but they will be abl'
to tell them all about the climat'
in Mars. what kind of underweal
they will need, how many blanket
at night and all that sort OF thlns.
In the first place, they are apr
TO compute the size of Mars Wit
great accuracy. 1t is 1900 miles II
diameter which means that 1T Il
only about twelve per cent as grea
!, as the earth in bulk-quite a smai
place as stars go. a sort OF Gophe
Prairie among the habitable planets
AS a result of being such a hsht
weight world, Mars. enjoys an ex
| tremely low force of gravity. A
the surface of Mars the force o
gravity is only about o
+ that at the surface of the eartn
= This means that if you weigh 10
rounds here on earth, and you wen
to Mars. you would weigh but sixt'
| pounds, though you would still a
the same strength. You could 1uml
more than twice as high, and n gen
: eral you would have a most unus
. ual lightness and bouyancy. Dane
' ing would be vastly more OF q pleas
, ure and not nearly so hard on TN
girls toes, but on the other hand
? fivver striking a bump in the roa
would bounce about two n one
half times as high. But then, dis