Year: 1870

in physical conditions widely different from that of our own,a chapter of the high est interest on ''Mars the Miniature of our Earth;" the specific interest of the essay being the very close analogy it proves in the physical condition of Mars to that of our own earth, so that we have far larger basis of similarities which we can as yet, only conjecture, than We have in case of the Moon, or even the planet Jupiter. or Venus, or Mercury-worlds in all of which there is some vast fundamental difference of condition which must affect the whole course of nature there. Iu the moon there .is the fatal difference of no atmosphere, and none, therefore, of the enormous vari- ety of phenomena-evaporatlo clouds, coiors, vegetation, lungs, &c.-dependent thereon.

 In Mercury and Venus, if there is not, as we should suppose on the first look. an amount of heat which would make those planets quite intolerable to the various ra- ces of people inhabiting our earth, we | have at least no right as yet to assume that l there Is not, and no evidence ut ali really demonstrating the existence of those gen. eraI physicaf fconditioDs on which alone we eau base an argument from analogy.

 In Jupiter there IS pretty clear positive

 

 | are quite inconsistent with life as we kn ow it. In all probability, the body of the planet is still a glowing uncondensed mass l of molten matter, with an atmosphere heav- fly charged with boiling vapor; and if there be life at all of our kind in the Jovian sys. l tenn, 1t must in all probability be on the satellites, and not on the planet itself; and even they are composed of so light mate rial, as compared with the earth or the moon, as to suggest a very different gen. eral physical condition.

 Of course, there Is nothing to prove that l intellectual beings, like ourselves in reas- onlDg powers, may not exist in the fiery l furnace of the sun or on the cinder winch We call the moon, or indeed, in the empty space itself; but theIe We come into the l region of pure conjecture, and the argu- ment for analogy wholly fails. Nothing is beyond pure con lecture. A Hundred thous and intellectual beings like myself may be dancing on the paper on which am writ ing, for anything 1 know; but have no | reason to think so, and I have very little more reason to think that such belngs ex- ist on the moon, for the only circumstance which favorably distinguishes these posi- tions from empty space, for the abode of beings like ourselves, Is the existence of I force of gravity which keeps us rooted to the earth; and even that circumstance as regards the sun can hardly by said to fur nlsh an analogy, for at the surface of the san, to say nothing of the difficulty of liv- ing in furnace, the force of gravity itself would be so enormous as to crush anyone with the body of man.

 While, therefore. there is nothing to pre- vent our conjecturing inhabitants for all the suns in space, there is precisely as lit ! tie reason for doing so as for conjecturing inhabitants for the intervening celestial vacuum. The mere attraction of our at 1 tentlon to these particular points in space by the lights suspended there, ought no more to suggest living beings in any de- gree like ourselves than the shining of a candle should suggest to a moth that in the flame of that candle should suggest to moth that in the flame of that candle 1 living beings like itself exist In point of fact, the moth would be much nearer the mark If 1t peopled the dark intervening l spaces with moths, and excluded them from the various luminous points visible to It; and so as regards solar worlds, not only have no reason to single them out for conJectural inhabitants, but as far as we can reason from analogy at all, We have | 0PSS1"A ASoSOA tO tu0LA Out us lOCaIl- ties Tn which creatures like ourselves are even more unlikely to exist than in the empty celestial spaces themselves. No doubt it is perfectly reasonable to suppose that there may be planetary systems for most or all of the solar worlds, like that to which we belong, and that there, if be- lngs more or less like ourselves do not al- ready exist, preparations may be making for them. But what we want to insist on IS, that so far as we can reason at all in thls matter, we can reason only by analo- gy; and that argument, as distinguished from mere conjecture, fails us, just so far as we have no tangible analogies of physi- cal condition on which to build.

 Now, Tn the case of the planet Mars, and Tn the case of the planet Mars alone, our astronomers have really established the ex- istence Of a Similar physical condition, wnlcn Elves us the strongest positive grounds for inferring that even such crea- lures as we now are could somehow make shit to live there, though, of course, not without certain amount of preliminary discomfort while we were trying to accli- matlze ourselves. Mir. Proctors graphic account of these similarities, and his de- hghtful chart of the planets continents ana waters, suggest to us to discuss one or two of the known differences of condition, Tn their relation to the probable results upon the history and civilization of the Martialists.

 First, let us briefly say that the Martial ists have world less in area than one of our hemispheres to explore-that, in spite of this, it has not very much less land than the earth, much less proportion of its surface being occupied with water than of our globe; that its seas are of the gene ral type of the Baltic and the Mediterra- mean, for the most part narrow, struggling, inland seas; that the greatest seas are in the neighborhood of the cold South Pole of Mars, which has climate far severer than the north pole; that there is world of perpetual snow at each Martial pole, which can be seen to diminish as the sum- mer returns to each hemisphere, and to increase again as winter comes back; that in spite of the preponderance of land, a vast deal of rain falls on Mars, especially Tn winter, clouds often hiding the configu- ration of the continents from our astrono- mers. and then suddenly dispensing, and leaving the continents clear again-a clear in up which usually happens about the hour of noon in Mars, just as our weather so often changes az the sun passes the meridian; that the length of the Martial year is nearly twice as long as ours; and that that the force of gravity on Mars is much less than half what 1t Is with us, so