Admitting the conclusions of Lowell of the existence of intelligence in Mars, and that that intelligence has been associated for ages with a planet having only slight elevations of land, a tenuous atmosphere, a scarcity of water which has been utilized for ages through artificial channels, as we have done in various parts of the world since prehistoric times, having vast tracts of sterile plains, and, within these sterile tracts large oases fed by irrigating canals, regions of sparse vegetation, and no large bodies of water; with these conditions going beyond the history of these intelligences, what must be the Martian interpretation of the surface features of this world? It is a perfectly fair inquiry, for by such means we may appreciate the attitude of some of our interpreters of Mars.
In examining the Earth, then, as we have examined Mars, the Martian would find large yellow and reddish areas, extensive greenish areas, and, besides, large regions of varying shades of blue, possibly, occupying three-fourths of the Earth's surface. The yellow areas he would interpret as desert land, the greenish areas he might consider vegetation, but what would he make out of the larger regions of blue? This would certainly puzzle him, because, unfamiliar with oceans, he could not believe that such vast tracts could really be water. He would easily interpret the polar snow caps, and the waters at their edges, but the oceans would be impossible to solve. The suggestion, by some audacious interpreter, that this vast blue area was water, would be answered by showing that these so-called bodies of water bordered vast tracts of sandy deserts with no canals running into them for irrigation or navigation purposes. Even the polar snow caps would be doubted, because they seemed to extend far down into temperate latitudes; and on their recedence in summer, there would be seen no dark, bordering seas as the result of their melting. The vegetation, instead of unfolding at the north and gradually extending southward, would unfold in a contrary direction, appearing first in south temperate latitudes and developing northward. The perennial character of the vegetation in the tropics would puzzle him. Even if he recognized oases in the deserts of America and Africa, the results of Artesian wells or springs, he could not believe them to be vegetation; for he would detect no irrigating canals running into them. He would come to the conclusion that no creature could possibly exist on the Earth, as the tremendous force of gravitation with great atmospheric pressure would forbid the existence of any organic forms. The immense clouds veiling the surface must at times suffer condensation, and the impact of raindrops would, from their velocity and weight, smash everything in the way of life. Life, if it existed in forms supported by appendages, must have legs of iron to sustain its weight, and a crust like a turtle to be impervious to raindrops, and this would be contrary to all Martian analogy. The courses of rivers, if detected, would puzzle him from their irregularity, unless he dared to suggest that these long sinuous channels extending for thousands of miles were identical to the little rivulets he had studied near his own poles.
In fact, about the only feature outside the polar snow caps that he would instantly recognize, would be the great ice cap of the Himalayas. India, that vast region extending from latitude 35° nearly to the equator, with its great plains and sterile regions, with its overpowering heat, and a dense population, depends for the sustenance of many of its millions upon the thousands of miles of irrigating canals, fed from the melting snow caps of the Himalayas. India has no great lakes, but in the northern plains great rivers course their way to the sea. The Ganges and the Indus and their tributaries derive their waters from the melting glaciers, and from these, a most extensive irrigating system of canals and reservoirs draw their waters. As the heat increases the ice melts more rapidly, and so more water is supplied at just the time when it is most needed. The whole scheme is on so vast a scale that a Martian would recognize its meaning, though he would wonder at the tortuous outlines of the larger canals.
Flammarion has, in a similar manner, presented the arguments of Martian astronomers as to whether life exists anywhere but upon the planet Mars. He says, among other fancies, that the sapient Martian argues that houses could not be built on the Earth, on account of the violence with which building materials, such as bricks, blocks, etc., would drop, and thus endanger life. Believing that Mars is rightly balanced as to temperature, the Earth being so much nearer the Sun, would be too hot for life to exist. The Martian conceives himself to be supremely complete "even to the point that artists wishing to represent God in our sanctuaries have figured Him in the image of a Martian man." The Martian considers our year too short. In his reflections he says: "During the period in which one of us attains the middle age of fifty years those on Earth have become decrepit old men of ninety-four, if, indeed, they are not already dead."
Seriously, if there is an intelligence in Mars, it must have evolved along the same general lines as intelligence has developed on the Earth. Being an older planet, it must have outgrown many of the vagaries and illusions which still hamper man in his progress here. In the dim past, however, we can imagine some Martian astronomer with the enigma of our Earth before him, and the great vault of heaven with its thousands of riddles unanswered, consulting records and covering pages with mathematical formulæ to ascertain the precise spot upon which grew the bean stalk by which a Martian Jack ascended to encounter the giant. Indeed, the imagination can conjure up an infinite number of parallels. If Mars is an older sphere, we trust it has long outgrown the superstitions which still hamper man in his interpretation of the inexorable phenomena of Nature on this little planet. We may hope that they have finally reached that stage when a dictum similar to that of Huxley forms an engraved tablet in their temples of worship. These are his words: "Science is teaching the world that the ultimate court of appeal is observation and experiment, and not authority. She is teaching it to estimate the value of evidence; she is creating a firm and living faith in the existence of immutable moral and physical laws, perfect obedience to which is the highest possible aim of an intelligent being."
[XVI]
SCHIAPARELLI, LOWELL, PERROTIN, THOLLON
Every age has its problem, by solving which humanity is helped forward.
Heinrich Heine.
In previous pages allusion has been made to the distinguished character of the astronomers who have contributed to a knowledge of the surface markings of Mars. Testimony from astronomical sources has been quoted as to their keen-sightedness in this work which, as Sir Robert Ball has said, "indicates one of the utmost refinements of astronomical observation." That the reader may better understand the eminence of some of those whose names will forever be associated with the investigation of the surface features of Mars the following brief records are given.