IN STARRY SKIES

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 11, 14 January 1926, Page 9

IN STARRY SKIES

MARTIAN FEATURES

DESERTS, OASES, AND CANALS

THE CASE FOR HABITATION.

(By "Omega Centauri.")

"The fiery colour from which Mars was named turns out in the telescope to be an ochre dashed with red. This is just the tint our own deserts show when one looks down on thorn from a mountain peak." "Beautiful as the opaline tints of the planet look down the far vista of tho telescope-tube, they represent a terrible reality. To the bodily eye, the aspect of the disc is lovely beyond compare; bnt to the mind's eye, its import is horrible." "All deserts, seen from a safe distance, have something of this charm of tint. Their bare rock gives them colour, from yellow mauve through ruddy sandstone to blue slate." These words occur in Lowell's eloquent description of the Martian deserts, and pitiless as the condition is, it is one to which tho earth itself must come if it lasts long enough. Saharas, with steady stealthy stride, are possessing themselves of its surface. Before the final stage in the life drama of a plauet is reached, the water, having left the surface, still lingers in the air. And this is the present state of Mars.

Lowell calculates that tho total amount of water on the planet is only one one hundred and eight-nine thousandth part of that on earth, and a large proportion of what there is is locked up alternately in the North and South Polar caps. The land is therefore an almost world-wide desert where fertile spots are the exception, and plant and animal life is engaged in a strenuous struggle for existence. The intensity of this struggle must have tended to evolve intelligence to cope with conditions growing steadily more adverse. The inhabitants must have water to nourish the vegetation on which their sustenance depends. They are, therefore confronted with the problem of bringing it to all their settlements from the only natural reservoirs which exist, the two polar caps. Lowell believes that they have riscen to the occasion, tackled the problem with success, and performed colossal engineering feats, spreading over the whole planet a network of gigantic irrigation works. This is his interpretation of the strange markings that are known by the misleading name of the canals of Mars. They are, he says, the most astounding objects to be viewed in the heavens. They are 1 not easily ■ seen, and it needed Sehiaparelli, the best observer of his day, to discover them. But sometimes in good air, they stand ont, Lowell says, with startling abruptness.

The first thing to strike one is their geometric look, they are absolutely straight, or rather they take the shortest distance between two points by following, great circles on the surface. They have no appreciable width, looking narrower and narrower as the conditions for observing improve. But Lowell estimates their real width to be from one to ten miles. Their lengths are enormous, ranging from 250 miles to ten times as much, and one is said to be 3450 miles long. Sehiaparelli detected altogether 113 canals, and the number known has been increased to 437 by the astronomers at Flagstaff. They have been found also "to extend over the dark areas, so if these ones were seas the canals must have been formed at a later date. Fifty-one out of the 437 canals have been seen as double lines, from seventy-five to four hundred miles apart. These doubles are only found in the tropical regions of the planpt.. At many of the junctions where canals cross, Pickering discovered what appeared to be small round dark spots, but which are really areas some seventy-five miles across. These are now known as oases.

Many observers miss the' canals through looking at the wrong time, viz., at opposition. At that tim.i the bright areas, where most occur, are tipped away from the earth, and, moreover, it is the wrong season for them to show. Lowell found that it is after the melting of the polar snows that the visibility of the canals begins to increase. This takes place first near the polar region, and the change proceeds regularly towards the equator and even beyond it. Lowell explains this as being duo to a transi ferenco of water from the melting snows for a distance of 2650 miles at the rato of 51 miles a day. Vegetation must wait for the arrival of the water before it can sprout. After v somewhat sudden rise to prominence the canals stay visible for some months, and then slowly die out again. But before the waning is complete an impu'sc has started from the other pnle. Thus, over much of the surface, there are two seasons of growth, one coming from the arctic, the other from the antarctic zone. How is this wave of fertility propelled? Lowell framed a . picturesque theory, and claimed that it was strictly scientific. He preferred, ho said, the work of a pioneer to that of a conservative established settler. He could never rest content with gathering facts. A theory, ho held, was just as necessary to give a working value to any body of facts as a back- i bone is to higher animal locomotion.

Co-ordination is the end of science, and it is just _another name for theory. In applying these principles Lowell reasoned that from its small mass Mars should have a surface smoother than the earth, that its oceans should be relatively, less and its air scantier. It should also age much more quickly. These predictions he found to bo verified by observation. No oceans, seas, lakes, or rivers can bo seen upon its surface, deserts cover five-eighths of it But marked effects arc noticcablo which can be explained only as the results of vegetation. But the systematised arrangement of lines forming a network over the whole planet is clearly not natural. It looks like the artificial product of intelligent mind. The lines take tl;e shortest distance between their eiids, which are often in oases. They seem to be the work of local intelligence now dominant on Mars.

But why have these beings triangulated their planet in so remarkable a way? Lowell says they were driven to do so by the instinct of self-preser-vation. They were compelled to make water-getting their fundamental occupation. An intelligent population must long have foreseen this inevitable struggle against drought. Probably the first beginnings of their enormous irrigation system were small and inconspicuous. Kut as the scarcity increased thc£ were lured to greater

distances and ultimately had to Up the great reservoirs of the polar caps. What the observers see is certainly not the water pipes or vertebral canals, but the vegetation rendered possible by irrigation. Their gigantic task was not quite as colossal as it appears to us, for being on a smaller planet can grow larger and more powerful than those living on a larger mass, and gravity being but one-third of that on earth they could move three times as much with the same effort. Then, again, having had a much longer experience, their wisdom and intelligence may well exceed ours very greatly. The flatness of the surface removes terrific obstacle^ that would be encountered here,' but since the blue-green and the ochre regions are at different levels tho transference could not be effected even on Mars without raising prodigious quantities of water through considerable heights. The oases are considered to b« centres of population. The largest are some 75 miles across, compared with Tokio, 10 miles, and London, a little more.

Mars, according to Lowell, is at this moment inhabited, its denizens are of an order whoso acquaintance is- well worth making, and the markings on its surface show tho supremacy of mind. Their presence ousts us from any unique or self-centred position in tho solar system; but we should welcome a cosmoplanetary point of view. A certain sadness attaches to these discoveries, for we cannot imagine the struggle to be indefinitely prolonged. The drying-up of tho planet must proceed until it can no longer support any form of life. But if life is as indestructible as matter or energy, or if it is more fundamental and immortal than either of these entities, the life which fades from one planet may blossom elsewhere.