THE LATEST NEWS FROM MARS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLI, Issue 12799, 17 March 1916, Page 2

THE LATEST NEWS FROM MARS.

Are the "canals" of Mars real ? K so. what are they '! Professor Percival Lowell established his splendidly equippr-d observatory at Flagstaff. Arizona, for the primary purpose of \ observing all the planets, and Mars in particular, in an atmosphere unrivalled for clearness. Until 1907 his was the only institution especially equipped and maintained for that "purpose. He has not only confirmed the existence of the ''canals"—first discovered by Schiaparelli in 1877—but assiduously mapped them, until now he is able to'indicate (says the New York "Outlook") the positions .of no fewer than 600 of them, most of which lie has discovered himself. To' Professor LowelL the "canals" are trenches, constructed for the purpose of conducting the water from melting polar snows to areas which would still bring forth if properly watered. .Mai's 'is a dying world. Its ■ only water is at the poles! Only irrigation on a scale .which dwarfs anything that we have found necessary can save its* inhabitants from death. To prove his point, Lowell points to the unnatural, mathematical straightness of the "canals"; to'the change hi hues of certain areas from brown to blue-green, as the "canals" apparently creep down from the poles to.the equatorial regions in the spring, and from blue-green to brown, as vegetation presumably dies with the ap-. proach of winter and the "canals" dis-. appear; and-to the "oases"-towards which the "canals" converge ih groups of three, six, and" even seventeen, like tlfe spokes of a -wheel' towards the hub. i