Professor Todd, Director of the Astronomical Observatory at Amherst College, in his book on Stars and Telescopes, in referring to drawings of a region in the southern portion of Mars, known as the Solis Lacus, and a complicated drawing of another region, says: "Whether one views this marvellous and intricate system as a whole, or in some portion of high detail, it is difficult to escape the conviction that the canali have, at least in part, been designed and executed with a definite end in view."
There are many who do not deny the existence of some forms of life on the planet, but are not prepared to admit the existence of intelligent creatures. Sir Robert Ball expresses himself as follows: "That there may be types of life of some kind on Mars is, I should think, quite likely."
The number of astronomers above quoted, who have seen and drawn the canals, might be augmented, but a sufficient number have been cited to show that the evidence of the presence of these markings does not rest with a few, furthermore, some of these observers can only interpret the markings as the result of intelligent action. It may be urged that among those quoted are some whose opinion may not have great weight since they are not professional astronomers. One must insist that the study of planetary markings as well as the interpretation of their meanings comes not only within the province of planetary astronomers, but that any broad-minded man, with an acute eye and familiar with the sciences connected with the surface features of the Earth, is quite competent to make observations of his own and to judge of the merits of the question.
[VI]
THE STUDY OF PLANETARY MARKINGS
Their singular aspect, and the fact that they are drawn with absolute geometric precision as if they were the product of rule and compass, have induced some people to see in them the work of intelligent beings, inhabitants of the planet. I should be careful not to combat this supposition which involves no impossibility.
Schiaparelli.
It is a question whether, after all, the study of planetary markings comes within the province of astronomers. Not more, perhaps, than the study of physical geography and subjects connected with the surface features of the Earth, comes under the cognizance of those whose profession it is to determine the oscillation of the pole, the Earth's movements due to the Moon, etc. Indeed, these lines of research are strictly astronomical. With the study of the surface markings of the Moon, or Mars, features of an entirely different kind are to be interpreted, and quite a different equipment is necessary. It is no wonder, then, that astronomers, the most conservative of all classes of investigators, should view with suspicion the results of the work of Schiaparelli, Lowell and others. Immersed in mathematics, trusting in nothing that cannot be measured and reckoned, as a class holding their imagination in abeyance, is it any surprise that they should present an attitude of indifference and even hostility to the work of those who, differently equipped mentally, have attempted a definition and solution of the riddle of the Martian markings? To appreciate how foreign to the studies of an astronomer is the interpretation of the canals of Mars, one has simply to scan the index of any astronomical publication, or the titles of papers in the transactions of astronomical societies. For example, take volumes XX and XXI of the "Astronomical Journal" and tabulate the papers, memoirs, etc., therein published, numbering two hundred and thirty-eight, and we find of these, seventy-four on the stars; sixty-two on the comets; nineteen on planets and satellites, mostly mathematical; eighteen on the Sun; eighteen on the asteroids; fifteen on Eros; ten on polar motion and latitude; four on Nova Persei; and seventeen miscellaneous, consisting of logarithms, instruments, Gegenschein, etc.; and only one on Mars, and this on the polar snow caps!
As to the question whether it is more important to add another to the thousands of variable stars and binaries, and hundreds of asteroids, already determined, or to consider whether we are alone in the universe and, if so, the significance of it, I think with the intelligent public there can be no doubt.
A fair sample of the subjects which occupy the astronomers' mind, and which are so remote from the study of planetary markings, and have so little interest for the public, may be gathered from the following list selected at random from an astronomical publication. Notes on variable stars; Maxima and minima of long period variables; Micrometrical measurements of the companion of Procyon; The problem of three bodies; Ephemeris of Comet a, 1901; On the eruptive energy of the stars; Eclipse cycles; Determinations of the aberration-constant from right ascension; Theory of a resisting medium upon bodies moving in parabolic orbits; Weights and systematic corrections of meridian observation in right ascension and declination; and other titles equally profound. Many of these memoirs consist of hundreds of pages of figures, and, as a friend of mine observed, not a column footed up! Take for example a title like the following: "Method of developing the perturbative functions, also precepts for executing their development." This memoir is accompanied by pages of algebraic formulæ which the layman turns over in despair, the only illumination consisting of a few words in English which render the gloom still more apparent,—such words as "hence," "or," "we therefore have," "if we put." Of what we "have," and why we "put," we are left in profound ignorance. Now I venture to believe that the great world of humanity takes but little interest in such pages, or in the kinds of titles above given, though fully realizing that they mean something and represent important steps in astronomic research. It would add greatly to the value of these contributions if a brief summary in plain English could be given at the end of these papers, but it is the rarest event that these collectors of data ever make any generalizations, or form any deductions.