CANALS OF MARS.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 22, Issue 90, 21 November 1911, Page 2

CANALS OF MARS.

In a novel theory o! Mars Prof. Svante Arrhenius rejects the view that the changing dark spots and bands are due to vegetation,, and accepts the old suggestion that the so-called canals are long, deep fissures. Similar formations exist on the earth, one extending a distance of 2,200 miles along the coasts of Peru and Chile. Water is supposed to collect in the fissures or canals, and to accumulate especially at the points where several meet, these of Schiaparelli, or “oases" of Lowell, being explained as places where the planet’s crust has sunk. Though very salt, the water is frozen by the intense cold. The ice evaporates in the dry air, the vapour collects as snow at the winter pole, and the canals become beds of dry salts, until, with the melting of the snow in spring and summer, the air ceases to be dry, and the salts again attract moisture, turning to a darker blue. Among objections offered to the new theory is that it does not satisfactorily account for the complete winter disappearance of the canals, which, if fissures, should remain visible throughout the year.