ABOUT MARS.

Northern Advocate, 15 February 1912, Page 6

ABOUT MARS.

STUDYING THE PLANET THROUGH

A BIG TELESCOPE,

Professor R. E. Barnard has begun, with the aid of the great 60in telescope at the Carnegie Observatory on Mount Wilson (Los Angeles), a series of experiments that may lead to important revelations and deductions concerning the planet Mars. Because of the recent annuoncement of the discovery of frost on Mars and the various theories deduced from it, interest in this planet has greatly increased. Professor Barnard has gone there from Chicago to pursue his opservations, and, though he says that so far nothing of a sensational nature has occurred on Mars, his colleagues appear to think he .will be able, before he gets through, to tell the world something , new about the planet.

It was Professor Lowell, of Flagstaff Observatory, who claimed to have observed frost on Mars. Professor Barnard is a jovial man, with an ardest love of £he beautiful in nature, but withal a thorough student and careful observer. He t.as a little trick of smiling enigmatically whenever a question dealing with his present work is brought up.

"Life as it exists on this earth," he said to pressman, "could not exist on Mars, because the atmosphere on Mars is too thin. However, there may be life on Mars v hich would conform itself to Martian conditions.

"There seems to be no «lirect evidence that the Polar caps observed on Mars are not real snow, such as we have in our terrestrial winters. This is suggested by the great seasonal changes whicli they undergo from winter to summer. There seems to be a general belief now that Mars certainly has an atmosphere. This atmosphere seems to be much less than our own, and yet it is of sufficient density to produce the phenomenon of Polar caps by condensation and evaporation, and also \o produce at rare intervals some form of clouds.

"We do not know whether Mars ever had life at any time* It is possible that Mars is in the process of losing its atmosphere and drying up, as it were, like the moon, and as the earth will lose its atmosphere in the course of time. But we can judge only by analogy, and cannot ascertain whe ther Mars has already passed through such a stage. Mars to be inhabited, conditions there to observe the earth are ideal. They do not have the high winds that disturb our pictures here. Did you ever notice the above a burning stove and try to see a Ficture through them? It is blurred, i<; it not We!i, the same conditions prevail here most o fthe time, and to see clearly and with accurate vision is most difficult."