A MESSAGE FROM MARS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 10869, 19 January 1901, Page 6

A MESSAGE FROM MARS.

Again the interesting question of possible communication with one of the other planets is being raised. It is even suggested that the inhabitants of Mare have been signalling to us within the last few weeks, trying to attract our attention, and possibly hoping to exchange ideas with us. Mr. Nicola Tesla, the famous electrician, stated recently that his instruments at the Colorado University recorded three faint "pulses of energy" not due to the sun or earth. He believed that they arose from signals from the planet 'Mars. Now it is reported that from the Lincoln Observatory, near Boston, in December last, was seen a> "shaft of li{£ht" projected from (Mars and lasting seventy minutes. When we think of the marvellous advances made by science during tha last century —of the discovery of the telegraph, the telephone, and, lastly, of wirekas telegraphy, no one will venture to say that during the present century we may

not find a means of communicating 1 some of the other planets in the 30 ] ar \ tern. Already we are able to weight '! heavenly bodies separated from U8 by millions of miles, to .state the ptin**\ chemical elements of which they ate posed, and to measure accurately th •* movements and rate of progress. An • ' *'' o£ these achievements is a priori n*"... ' derful as would be the fact of being '- to make signals which the inhabitants 0 { " Mars would be able to observe, and to mc , '* any which they might send in return. aJ 1 there is little doubt that if ever the problem »! of interplanetary communication is so [ w £. it will bo with Mars that our first will be exchanged. With the ol k the moon and Venus, Mai 5 j, ''* our nearest celestial neighbour, s , f* far as astronomers have been all* I to observe, the conditions I on the planet present some curious analog, with our own. The surface is apparently divided into land and water, but while thre*. quarters of our earth is covered with water the land and water—or what are supposed to ba such, in Mars—aro very nearly eoual There are white caps seen at the poles, sup. posed to ba snow, and these increase j n extent during the Martian winter and fejsen « in tho summer. Professor Phillips Was « I opinion that the considerable periodical I exchange of moisture which is made between 1 tho two hemispheres, especially bstweea tfo I two poles, must give rise to hurricanes and * storms of the violence of which we can fona no idea; while the melting of the soowa over large areas must produce terrihte periodical inundations.

While <the Martian day exceeds oura by only 39min 35sec in length, the Martian year is nearly twice as long as ours, being, in fact, composed of 668 2-3rds of its own solar days. The most remarkable difference however between Mars and the earth is the lessened attraction of gravity on the planet Mars, the practical effect being that a inaa weighing ten stone (1401b) on tlie earth if transported to liars would weigh there only about 52£lb. It would seem iro& tJjy that the organisation of the living bodies which may possibly people Mara must tkera. fore differ from that with, which we are imiliar. Yet M. Flammarion, the eminent French astronomer, has no hesitation in saying that we must regard . Mars, not as an inert mas* rolling through space, but as a living world, peopled by beings who may present a great analogy with ourselves, adorned with landscapes analogous to those which cluinn us in terrestrial nature. It is, he says, a world " inhabited wilihout doubt by a race " which works, thinks, and meditates like "ourselves on the great and mysterious " problems of na/ture." It is indeed a fas-

cinating subject of thought to imagine that they are at this moment endeavouring to communicate with us. Sir Robert Bali affirms that a signal to attract attention across the thirty-four millions of miles which separate us, under the most favourable

circumstances, must ba as large as Ireland - to be seen. Even if we ooneeiva this difficulty overcome, there still remains the apparently insuperable difficulty of ever making signals which shall be intelligible. If the people of Mars only understood the Morse alphabet, and any known human tongue we might perhaps be able to heliograph to them the l&teet news..;-. Unfortunately, even if there are rational beings there it is quite possible that they may not belong to anything like tlie same order of intelligence as ourselves, which case it is not easy to se& how there can ever be anything like an interchange of ideas. But it is useless to speculate on the question, attractive though it may be. "Practical" men will, no dou\&, tell us that we had much better push on with the Pacific cable.