Are the Planets Inhabited?

by E. Walter Maunder

The above remarks apply to observation with the unaided eye, but the same principle applies yet more strongly to telescopic vision. No star is near enough or sufficiently large to give the least impression of a true disc; its diameter is indistinguishable; it is for us a mathematical point, “without parts or magnitude.” But the image of a star formed by a telescope is not a point but a minute disc, surrounded by a series of diffraction rings. This disc is “spurious,” for the greater the aperture of the telescope the smaller the apparent disc.

That which holds good for a bright point like a star holds good for every individual point of a planetary surface when viewed through the telescope; that is to say, each point is represented by a minute disc; all lines and outlines therefore are slightly blurred, so that minute irregularities are inevitably smoothed out.

When we come to photographs, the process is carried to a third stage. The image is formed by the telescope, subject to all the limitations of telescopic images, and is received on a plate essentially granular in structure, and is finally examined by the eye. The granular structure of the plate acts as the third factor in concealing irregularities and simplifying details; a third factor in producing the two simplest types of form—the straight line and the circular dot.

Prof. Lowell describes the canals as like lines drawn with pen, ink and ruler, but not a few of our best observers have advanced much beyond this stage. Even as far back as 1884, some of the canals were losing their strict rectilinear appearance to Schiaparelli, and the observers of the planet who have been best favoured by the power of the telescope at their disposal, by the atmospheric conditions under which they worked, and by their own skill and experience—such as Antoniadi, Barnard, Cerulli, Denning, Millochau, Molesworth, Phillips, Stanley Williams and others—have found them to show evident signs of resolution. Thus, in 1909, Antoniadi found that of 50 canals, 14 were resolved into disconnected knots of diffused shadings, 4 were seen as irregular lines, 10 as more or less dark bands; and he found that, in good seeing, there was no trace whatever of the geometrical network.

The progress of observation, therefore, has left Prof. Lowell behind, and has dispelled the fable which he has defended with so much ingenuity. But, indeed, there never was any more reason for taking seriously his theory as to the presence of artificial waterways on Mars than for believing in the actual existence of the weird creatures described by H. G. Wells in the War of the Worlds.

There are too many oversights in the canal theory.

Thus no source is indicated for the moisture supposed to be locked up in the winter pole cap. Prof. Lowell holds that there are no large bodies of water on the planet; that the so-called seas are really cultivated land. In this case there could be little or no evaporation, and so no means by which the polar deposits could be recruited.

Yet it is certain that the supply of the winter pole cap must come from the evaporation of water in some region or other. And here is another oversight of the artificial canal theory. The canals are supposed to be necessary for the conveyance of water from the pole towards the equator; although, as this was “uphill,” vast pumping stations at short intervals had to be predicated. But it is not supposed that the water needed to travel by way of the canals to the poles. If, however, the moisture is conveyed as vapour through the atmosphere to the pole as winter approaches, it cannot be impossible that it should be conveyed in the same manner from the pole as summer draws on, and in that case the artificial canals would not be needed. If the canals are necessary for conveying the water in one direction, they would be necessary for the opposite direction. But there would be something too farcical in the idea of the careful Martians dispatching their water first to the pole to be frozen there, and then, after it had been duly frozen and melted again, fetching it back along thousands of miles and through numerous pumping stations for use in irrigating their fields.

Of all the many hundreds of canals only a few actually touch the polar caps. But on the theory that the entire canal system is fed by the polar cap in summer, the carrying capacity of the polar canals should be equal to, if not greater than, that of the entire system outside the polar circle. A glance at the charts of the planet shows that the polar canals could not supply a twentieth part of the water needed for those in the equatorial regions. Another oversight is that of the significance of the alleged uniformity and breadth of the canals. Prof. Lowell repeatedly insists that the canals are of even breadth from end to end, and spring into existence at once throughout their whole length. This statement is in itself a proof that the canals cannot be what he supposes them to be. An irrigation system could not have these characteristics; the region fertilized would take time to develop; we should see the canal extending itself gradually across the continent, and its breadth would not be uniform from end to end, but the region fertilized would grow narrower with increase of distance from the fountain head of the canal.

Under what conditions can we see straight lines, perfectly uniform from end to end, spring into existence, in their entirety, without going through any stages of growth? When the lines are not actual images, but are suggested by markings perceived, but not perfectly defined. In 1902 and 1903, in conjunction with Mr. Evans, the headmaster of Greenwich Hospital School, I tried a number of experiments on this point, with the aid of about two hundred of the boys of the school. They had several qualifications in respect of these experiments; they were keen-sighted, well drilled; accustomed to do what they were told without asking questions; and they knew nothing whatsoever of astronomy, certainly nothing about Mars.