Doubts were raised concerning this explanation by the height of 200,000 feet found by an astronomer for the elevation of these mountains. I went over the calculation and found only 15,000 feet. These mountains would not therefore be higher than Mont Blanc, and perhaps less. We should also remember that those luminous projections appear every time that the planet returns to the same condition of illumination with regard to the Earth. They were observed in 1890, 1892, 1894, 1899, 1907, 1909, 1911, 1913, etc. The regions where they appear are a sort of island called Noachis, another called Hesperia, and a third called Tempe. According to all appearances, we have to do with high mountains covered with snow and with still higher clouds.
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The epoch at which the inhabitants of Mars can communicate with us has not yet arrived, or perhaps it has already passed away. All cosmological studies agree in presenting this planet as older than ours, since it is farther from the Sun, and as having passed through its phases of astral life more rapidly than we, on account of its smallness and lightness. We cannot pretend to know the forms which living beings may have assumed there; but we cannot imagine, on the other hand, that the forces of nature, being the same as here and exercised under almost identical conditions (atmosphere, climate, seasons, water, vapours, etc.), have been sterilised by a perpetual miracle of annihilation while on Earth the cup of life overflows all round and the generative force of living beings everywhere surpasses continual and permanent production. But whatever may be the forms of Martian humanity, they must be superior to us, for several reasons. The first of these is that it would be difficult for a human species to be less intelligent than ours, because we do not know how to behave and three-quarters of our resources are employed for feeding soldiers.
The second reason is that progress is an absolute law which nothing can resist. If therefore the inhabitants of Mars have passed their infancy, the centuries have brought them to an age of reason, and their present state represents what our race will be in several million years.
A third circumstance is that they are better situated than ourselves for escaping from the heaviness of matter. A given bulk of water, earth, or other substance is only seven-tenths of the weight it is here; 1,000 grammes taken to Mars would only weigh 376 grammes there; and the woman weighing 8 stone would only weigh 3 stone there.
And, finally, the climatic conditions appear to be much more agreeable there.
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Those are all advantages in favour of the Martians. If, therefore, the idea has occurred to them to make signals to us, it is probably not at the present time. There is no reason that they should think of it at the same time as we and should wait for us. Perhaps they tried 200,000 or 300,000 years ago, before the appearance of man, at the time of the cave-bear or the mammoth. Perhaps they addressed themselves to our planet at the time of the Iguanodon and the Dinosaurus. Perhaps they tried again 2,000 or 3,000 years ago. Never having seen any sign of life, they will have concluded that either there are no inhabitants on the Earth, or that they are busy with other things besides the study of the universe and eternal truths. That was true yesterday—and it is true to-day.