PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3556, 9 May 1922, Page 63

PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

TH£ MYSTERY OF MARS. Fifty million miles across space as we stand and watch the stars is a shining light to which the minds of men have been turned for generatibns. It is Mars. In these words begins a fascinating article on Mars in a recent number of My Magazine. Incidentally, 1 wonder how many of my young friends have the good fortune to see this magazine regularly. It is edited by Mr Arthur Mee, one of the sanest and patriotic Britishers who seeks to instruct the nation. He also controls the Children’s Newspaper, which tells “the story of the world to-day for the men and women of to-morrow.” In addition to all of which he is a firm friend of boys. You know, of course, that Mars has interested the greatest astronomers of the ages, ha 3 provided speculative themes for novelists and playwrights, and withal possesses a general interest because of the possibility that the planet may be inhabited by human beings like or unlike ourselves. Mars is ahead of earth in the long evolution of the rolling worlds, and it is believed by those who have studied Mars most that the planet is not dead. In 1610 Galileo turned his telescope on Mars for the first time: He claimed that the planet was not round, and since that time scientific men have kept their glasses turned toward the fascinating spot. Some have found canals and Polar caps which disappear during the Martian summer. Dean Swift, in his “Travels of Gulliver,” told how the astronomers of Laputa had discovered two satellites “which revolved about Mars.” At that time it was not known that Mars had any moons, but in 1877 an American professor, watching Mars through his telescope at Washington, discovered that two moons actually circled round him. The imagination of the storyteller had forestalled the know ledge of the scientist. “Slowly men came to note,” says the article, “that Mars revolved round the sun at a distance of 140 million miles, that his year was equal to .687 of our days, and his day 37 minutes longer than ours; that Mars was much smaller than the earth, being only 4191 miles in diameter, and that in bulk it would take seven planets as big as Mars to make one earth.” His mass or weight was worked out and found to be ten times less than the earth’s, and the puli of gravity at his surface proved to be only two-fifths of the earth’s, so that a man who weighs 150 pounds on earth would only weigh 60 on Mars, and would be able to jump over an 8-foot wall as easily as -he can jump a 2-foot fence here. An elephant on Mars would possess agility like unto a gazelle, and could perform quite respectable leaps. Clouds were observed, the atmosphere was found to be light enough to allow - the surface of the planet to be traced, and it was found that this was in the main red, with dusky patches here and there, and these, were supposed to represent land and sea. In 1877, Giovanni Schiaparelli, using the Milan Observatory-, discovered that on its surface was a number of straight, dark lines, which *. he called canali, or channels. The result of this discovery raised the interesting speculation whether Mars had inhabitants capable of carrying out vast engineering schemes. Professor Low-ell, one of America’s most distinguished astro--4 liomers, concluded they were really channels as Schiaparelli claimed, and he further suggested that when the ice caps dissolved in the summer sun the channels widened, irrigated the adjoining land, and caused a wide belt of vegetation to spring up. How much of this can be verified beyond doubt? A lens is wanted to bring Mars within a mile of the earth, so that its landscape may be viewed. To do this a lens fifty feet wide would have tc be made, whereas the biggest considered possible is a hundred inches. If the lens could he made the necessary tube is impossible—it would have to be a thousand feet long. Impossible ! No. Two Americans— Professor David Todd, of Amherst College. Masschusettis, and Professor Wood, oi John Hopkins University, at Baltimore—have made experiments which are full of promise. The lens will be a giant bowl of mercury, and a shaft w-ill be the tube. It reads like the most fascinating fairy story ever told, but scientific men of undoubted standing have pledged their reputations on its possibilities of success. The shaft has been discovered at Chanaral, in Chile, in the heart of the Andes. It was necessary that it should point in a certain direction—it must point directly up to that part of the heavens across which Mars would pass in the year 1924, when the planet approaches nearer to the earth than for a century past, and nearer than it will be for a century to come. This hole in the earth which will be used is 1200 ft deep. It w-ill be widened to 50 ft at the surface, lined with concrete. and made white and smooth. During 1924 Mars will pass over the shaft several times. The immense bowl of mercury will rest at the bottom, and it is hoped that the image of the planet

failing on the mercury will be reflected into a glass prism higher up the shaft, and then into the lens of a camera facing the prism. It constitutes the most wonderful asjjiration in astronomical science ever attempted. Think of the devices which the-mind of man hag called to his aid in the task. There is the ®ld pit shaft- which must be widened until it is fifty feet* across. There is the large bowl of mercury which muist be spun round without vibration. . There is the magnetic attraction by which the bowl will be revolved while suspended in space. There is the power house at the top of the shaft to work the motors. There are the motors at the bottom of the shaft-to work the'bowl. There is the reflector suspended in the shaft to pick up the reflection in the bowl. There is the chamber cut out in the side of the shaft for the camera. There is the special camera, which will pick up the image from the reflector hanging high up in the shaft. There is the fastest photographic plate ever known to pick up the fastest moving thing ever photographed. If .it succeeds—and the scientists say it will—-Mars will be as near to the view as is St. Paul’s to Westminister. It will be as the landscape is to the naked eye from the hill. But the planet, brought within a mile and a half of our sight, would be moving so fast that we should see nothing of it as it dashed past the shaft. The instantaneous photograph will alone tell us whether the dream has been realised. Such are the marvellous means by which the mystery of Mars will be revealed in 1924.