The music of the spheres

by Florence Armstrong Grondal

The atmosphere of Mars is very rare and thin, more rare and thin than that surrounding the peak of Mount Everest, our highest mountain. Being less than one-fourth as dense as that found on the earth, one may see through it easily and discern the permanent markings on its surface. The first thing one notices through a telescope is the ruddy color of its surface and the dark belt across the equatorial regions. The ruddy color is presumed to be the characteristic color of its soil, five-eighths of which is in a desert condition; there are also regions of other colors which are subject to change, and a white cap marking either pole.

The two white caps about the poles increase greatly during severe months of winter and vanish to small spots during the warmth of the Martian summer. These are the reservoirs of moisture for the planet. A series of photographs illustrating the phenomenon of the increase and decrease of these caps is very interesting, for at the height of the Martian winter, for instance, the north polar cap extends to the temperate zone while during the summer it dwindles until it is but a tiny patch a few hundred miles across. As the polar caps melt, they are bordered by a blue belt and this blue belt is only visible as the brilliant caps disappear. Judging from the same phenomena which are manifest on our earth, these polar caps were supposed to be snow. Through the aid of the spectroscope, they are now known to be snow.

The ruddy areas on Mars are interpreted as desert regions—great unfertile tracts of land but little affected by changes in climatic conditions, while the large irregular dark or blue-green regions are regarded as marshes or areas covered with vegetation, since they invariably grow darker during the Martian summer and reveal themselves in massed colors changing from the initial blue-green to ocher and finally to chocolate-brown. These changes follow the melting of the polar caps and each hemisphere undergoes the change in turn. Mars, however, is best known and famous for the theory of its so-called "canals."

The "canals" were first observed by Schiaparelli, the distinguished Italian observer, in 1877. Schiaparelli thought that the dark irregular areas were oceans and that they were connected by these narrow streaks which he called "canale" or "channels." Unfortunately the word was not translated as "channels" but as "canals," which implies artificial construction, and this latter does therefore not convey the idea which the astronomer sought to convey. These black lines, or "canale," are generally straight and although spoken of as narrow, must be at least 12 miles in width and from a few hundred to three or four thousand miles in length. Starting from points near the polar caps, they follow the arcs of great circles, proceeding to what seem to be centers in the middle of the continent where, most surprisingly, they meet other lines which have come to the same spots. Schiaparelli says that "every channel opens at its end either into a sea or into a lake or into another channel, or else into the intersection of several other channels." "None of them as yet have been seen cut off in the middle of a continent, remaining without beginning or without end ... by preference they converge toward the small spots which we have given the names of lakes." These lakes are sometimes several hundred miles in diameter, although many are very much smaller.

The late Dr. Lowell, splendidly equipped with an observatory 7000 feet above sea-level in the clear air of Flagstaff, Arizona, maintained that each "canal" marked the route of a waterway, and that the visible mark is not the "canal" itself, but a broad band of vegetation irrigated from a narrow channel. He studied and mapped 522 of these canals, 56 of which were double. He also mapped the "lakes" which he called "oases." Dr. Lowell wrote a very interesting book on "Mars as the Abode of Life" as a result of his observations. He explains the "strips of vegetation" in this manner:

Since Mars is fast approaching a desert condition, there is a great scarcity of water, the only reliable source of supply coming from the melting of the snows at the polar caps. With the advance of spring the white caps begin to recede and a dark band appears around the edge. The water thus formed then flows away from the poles over the flat, dry surface, collects in the greenish areas (which are probably marshes) and from there is led into the canals. These canals do not begin to appear until the snows begin to melt and are always in the same position each season. The land is then moistened with water, the process starting near or around the melting polar caps and gradually moving down toward the equator. This water takes about 55 days to reach the equator, vegetation springing up along the way. At the end of the season, the fresh green withers and dies down. The spots, or oases, always connected by a canal to the rest of the dark area, appear and disappear, like the canals, with seasonal changes. These start faint in tone as large as they are to be, then darken throughout.

Since the vivifying water advanced from the south pole toward the equator and also toward the equator from the north pole, Lowell concluded that it must have some propelling force behind it, at least in one direction. This presupposes the directing influence of an intelligence.

Accepting the theory that Mars is inhabited by intelligent beings, it is presumed that the water resulting from the melting of the snow caps is consciously controlled and turned over certain designated portions of its surface, otherwise the tremendous floods "would prove more of a curse than blessing." The picture is one of a high order of intelligent beings realizing that their water is gradually disappearing and that their planet is rapidly becoming a desert, and who are struggling heroically to prolong its life. There are many objections to this theory, but at least it is an interesting hypothesis presented by a noted astronomer who possessed a splendid telescope erected in the clear air of Arizona, and who spent his life in a study of this planet.

The entire surface of Mars is about equal to the land surface of our earth. The density of the planet is only 73% that of the earth and the force of gravity on its surface is 35% as great as on the surface of our world. The lesser force of gravity, also the lower temperature and rare atmosphere, would all have their influence on any life found on Mars with the result that beings found there might be constituted physically in a very different way from ourselves. The temperature of Mars was computed lately at the Mount Wilson and the Lowell observatories and the results obtained at the two observatories were in excellent agreement. Although it was found to be 94 degrees below zero at one pole and 96 degrees below zero at the other pole, the average temperature on other parts of the planet during the brightest parts of the day averages between 40 to 60 degrees F. This would be a livable temperature for life as we know it, although another fact is commented upon which might cause curious complications. Since the blanket of air surrounding the planet is not of sufficient thickness to hold the heat on the planet, most of it may escape during the night-time, thus causing the temperature to drop to over 112 degrees below zero. If intelligent life wished to survive from day to day it would have to hibernate, perhaps in heated underground galleries, during the night half of its existence. The question as to whether or not there could be life on this planet has been hotly disputed by astronomers for years. It is certainly one of the most interesting aspects of astronomy to the public at large. It is often argued that since Mars is smaller than the earth it must have cooled down millions of years before the earth reached a similar stage, and that its organic life must therefore be proportionally farther advanced. Others have contended that it is past the age where it would be able to support life of any kind.

Professor W. H. Pickering has advanced a new speculative theory called "The Theory of Aerial Deposition." According to this theory the major canals are natural marshes fed by storm laden air currents. These marshes furnish Mars a substitute for our oceans. Without them "the water evaporated from the summer pole would find its way too rapidly, through the natural general atmospheric circulation of the planet, to the southern polar regions, where, wrapped at this season in the long winter night and subjected to the cold of space, it would quickly be withdrawn from further use in support of vegetal and perhaps animal life. The function of the so-called canals or marshes in the economy of the planet is in short to furnish a substitute for our oceans, and to furnish by evaporation during the Martian summer a steady and continuous supply of water after that derived from the northern snows has appreciably diminished." The above is quoted from a report on Mars by Professor Pickering in the January number of Popular Astronomy, 1918. Professor Pickering believes that the "canals" "are either bands of moistened soil or vegetation growing on moistened soil" and that they cannot be anything else "for we know of no solid in the mineral world that darkens and then fades out in the sunlight." He does not think that the major canals are necessarily the work of intelligent beings, but they do serve the purpose of furnishing the northern hemisphere with a supply of water in the form of natural marshes during the long northern summer until the southern polar cap starts to melt at the coming of the autumnal equinox.