Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1892 — MYSTERIOUS OLD MARS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MYSTERIOUS OLD MARS.

THB r LANET MAY BE THE HOME OF MEN. Alt 8I(m « its tetm «T Wtrk Uut Cnll Hatt Ban Dtu OrnOj fcy Bomb HaHa-PitM— tiliw.im Atftspt tt Mn. Fafltt and Thaortea. Up to frithin a short t±ma ago very forr focjl* bad anything bat an indistinct Idea of this planet. Everybody that knew anything about astronomy knew, es coarse, all about Mara, bat a hen a man Is harvesting bis grata crop, watching the course of the stock market, or try - lag to pick the winners at a horse race, he Isn't paying modi attention to astronomy. All the view that the average man has of the planet Is gained by looking at the heavens through the bottom o i a soda-water glasa.

Not recently this planet has been In What the astronomers call apposition. That la very like saying to the average mind, that peas and beans multiplied by sabbage make roast beef. Bo to find oat exactly what the meaning of apposition is one mast first learn something about the history of the planet Mara. After that you can pot on an easy air of knowledge. Mara is the fourth planet fn order of distance from the son. It la nearest to

the world on which we five es all the great superior planets that make the solar system. Mars travels around the son In a mean sidereal period of 686.8767 days, on an orbit inclined one degree and fifty-one minutes to the piano oi the soliptic, at a mean distance of 139,311,80® miles from the son. This orbit Is considered eccentric, Insomuch that its greatest distance.

miles, exceeds Its leest, 126,318,000, by more then 26,000,000 ■dies. When it Is nearest to the earth Ik Is in apposition. " Now the foregoing statement Is technical, and to the layman’s mind tells little. What the average man can see when looklhg through a telescope at Man is s great big star. What Mar* Is. < It doesn’t seem to be anything else, hot it is. People who have made a study of the planet believs that It is a good deal like the world, and while they do not go so fax as to actually say so, they* think It possible that Hia Inhabited. ft anas some fifteen yean ago that Mars first became a planet that had any. earthly interest to the people who live on this globe. A very Wise matt that need to sit up nights and look at the sky through a telescope, first nude known the fact that Mara was a good ceal like the earth in Ms shape, and also ottered the startling that was inhabited. People laughed at him just then, and people who are in the habit of discovering facts ahead of time. ■■ • But after him came a man who told the same -tblng again in a- new way, and Who no* has got. to a point where the world 1b beginning to believe that he is light Schiaparelli Oie Ulan The man is Professor Schiaparelli, of Milan. Italy, fie says that in his opinion the planet Mars is not simply a nebulous guantity of vapor, but it is a solid anbstHßce on Which animals and men Ho found that the planet has a diameter *f about 4,00(1 miles. By earefal ealeuiation he is oonfldsnt thaUts year d^ B te*timi jJd setts each pkaneT

laud, jset like our world. It has, he says, seas and continents and rivers. As to its density, it differs very little from that of the earth. Gravitation at Its surface must be much less than it is to this world. A man who weighs 150 pounds upon this mundane sphere would weigh about 60 pounds on Mars. The most obese of American stout people would, if he lived on Mars, become so light that he could dance as easily as

one of the young ladies at Eldorado. In fact, all substances would be reduced in weight by transfer from our world to Mara. Upon that planet our 6ak would become as light as cork. Our gold would le as light as tin. A glass of wine that wouldn’t affect the smallest child in this world, would make a man in Mars feel that ho owned that and several other planets. This statement may cause a sudden exodus of people to the planet. In Mars Inliabltod? The question just now is: Is Mars inhabited? No one knows, of course, whether it is

or not. The only thing to judge by is in the character of the planet gathered by careful inspection through telescopes. Astronomers are confident that they have seen the eternal snows of the two polar regions of our neighbor world. They are confident that its continents are red, and that its seas are green, and they are equally sure that its seas do not cover more than one-fourth of its surface. The seas on our planet cover three-fourths of the world, which points the comparison. ! The scarcity of water in Mars is its most remarkable feature. The theory that people really do inhabit the planet is borne out by the faot that Professor Schlarparelll is ooufident that he has discovered that Mars has been traversed by gigantic canals. It is easy to see that if there are canals on the planet it is a surety that people must havo built them. The idea, too, is strengthened by the discovered fact that there scarcity of water in'the planet. Necessarily the planet must be irrigated in that manner, apd as there are canals, the conclusion is> that there must be people there. How the CttualH Look. Tho canals of the planet Mils are believed to havo been cut for thousands of miles across the land to connect with the seae. They are green In color, like the water, and, in order to be visible through our telescopes, they must be from 100 to 400 milos in length. They must also be about 200 miles wide.

They mostly run from north to south, for the seas divide the land from east to west It le difficult to conceive of such enormous public works, but nothing else will

answer. Our little canals would dry up in crossing a thousand miles of desert. Conceding that the people who may live in Mars are such wonderful engineers and scientists, it is easy to allow them any amonnt of skill, and it is easy to suppose that on the vast canals they

build floating cities, where they may enjoy the climate near the water, while the interior is uninhabitableWonderful Cities. A city built on steel or iron hulls—for irox is the metal of Mars—chained closely together and built upon wood and metal, would be practicable anywhere, but would be necessary in a world where the land is dry and arid. If there are people in Mars, they must possess much/skill and intelligence. So they would probably have wit enough to tow their floating cities to northern latitudes in summer. As the winter season approaches they would obviously float them southward, following up the climate, as the American Indians do with their skin lodges and women and children. If a people can construct such enormous works as canals of the dimensions told in the foregoing, it would be impossible to tell where the limit of their skill would reach. They must be far ahead of Americans as engineers and mechanics. What other astonishing triumphs as mechanical originators they have achieved must be left to the future to discover.

What Astronomers Think. “.One circumstance,” says Professor Proctor, that may at first excite surprise is the fact that in a planet so much farther from the sun than the world there should exist so olose a resemblance to the earth in respect to climatic relations. “But if we consider the results of Tyudale’s researches on the radiation of heat, and remember that a very moderate increase In the quantity of certain vapors present in our atmosphere would suffice to render the climate of thp earth intolerable through excess of heat —just as glass walls cause a hothouse to be warm long after the sun has set—wo shall not fail to see that Mars may readily be compensated by a corresponding arrangement for his increased distance from the vivifying center of his solar system.” Professor Swift says that there is certainly something that is mysterious in the topography of the planet, as viewed from the earth. “Some of its markings," he adds, “are changeable, and appear as clouds, while others seem stable aDd are indicative of solidity. As, however, Mars rotates on its axis so slowly, no belts like those environing Jupiter and Saturn are visible. “That Mars is inhabited is an understood fact. That it was created to that end is a verity, but whether it is or not is only a question that we can judge by understanding its availability for the giving of life to human beings. No telescope has yet been discovered that truly tells that faot.” Prof. Schiaparelli is the only astronomer that has managed to draw a chart of Mars that as a planet exists only in the minds of other not quite so famous astronomers. Aside from the discoveries of the Italian professor, tho credit of finding that Prof. Schiaparelli is correct must be awarded to tho famous Lick Observatory at San Francisco. The money to build this magnificent observatory was furnished by Mr. Lick, and it has well demonstrated his faith that it was neoded by the fact that it has told the world that Mars is probably another planet like ours.

PATHS OF THE MOONS OF MAKS.

MAP OF THE SURYACE OF MAKS.

SABTH AND MARS IN CONJUNCRION.

THE GREAT LICK TELESCOPE.

BCHIAPARaLLI'S CHART, SHOWING DOUBLE CANALS.