A MESSAGE FROM MARS.

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 May 1906, Page 1

A MESSAGE FROM MARS.

In ten years, probably much less, tho world will bo ablo to send messages to Mars, directly and unhesitatingly, without a hitch or a stop or a word lost in space. Such is the opinion of Marconi. "That it is possible to transmit signals to Mars I know as surely as if 1 had a gun big enough or powder strong enough to shoot there—more surely, in fact, for a gun might miss the mark, while my wireless message will strike the entire solar system without aiming. Mars and our earth lie in the same great unbroken bed of ether. Wo know this because all night long tho beams of

the sun are reflected from Mar's red surface stream down tho astronomer's telescope. If wo are able to send signals through space over such intervening obstacles as mountains, forests and cities, liberating vast quantities of electricity, and yet safely delivering them at the point of reception undisturbed and unconfused, it follows as a natural deduction that it is merely a question of commanding sufficient power to set up (he necessary disturbance in the ether where there are no obstructions intervening to send signals io even so distant a point as Mars. Only very recently Professor Lowell succeeded in photographing the so-called Martian canals. From their straightness he is certain they are not natural, but the result of intelligent beings. Their stupendous size, he asserts, proves that the diggers are not only creatures of great size and strength, but infinitely' further advanced in the use of mechanical devices. Such beings could most easily and quickly communicate their answers (o our planet. Mars must bo all eyes and nerves."