"Mars is now at the nearest point to the earth for the first time in one hundred years," he said, "and its south-pole is turned towards us. It is one-half the diameter of the earth, and its day is but half an hour longer than our own."
"And you really think the planet is inhabited by people like ourselves?" Pat said, her imagination seemingly enthralled by the gorgeous night spectacle of the planet.
"Why not?" Henry smiled. "Mars has oxygen, the breath of life, diluted with nitrogen, the same as the air of the earth. Its physical conditions for life closely resemble our own."
"Do I understand you to say that you believe life on Mars is similar to our own, and as far advanced as our own civilization?" the Prince interrogated.
"First, let me explain more fully the physical conditions on the planet," Henry said. "Mars has its seasons, which essentially resemble the earth's. That white spot you observed in the neighborhood of its south-pole is a polar cap of ice and snow, just now reforming after shrinking and melting away during the summer. Those greenish-blue areas you saw in the planet's southern hemisphere, parallel to the equator, are the vegetated sections—the tropical jungles."
"And what's all this tommyrot about canals being distributed like a network over the planet's surface, and supplying water from the melting polar snow-caps for the vegetation of Mars?" the Prince asked, a little impudently.
"Dr. Percival Lowell made the first study of these strange geometric tracings, on the regularity of the 'canal' patterns," Henry responded quietly. "On his studies was based largely the theory that the planet is inhabited.
"If your little country of Georgia, in southern Russia," he continued, "was slowly drying up and there were available large quantities of water from melting snow and ice at certain locations in your northern and southern boundaries, you would soon build canals, or ditches, for irrigation purposes, wouldn't you? You would—if you had any brains."
The Prince eyed him speculatively, and replied, "But I have failed to see any markings of these so-called canals on Mars, through your telescope. Why is that?"
"Objects on Mars less than ten miles in size cannot be seen clearly except through the largest telescopes," he answered. "These patterns follow the curves of great circles. Several of them appear to pass through the same point. At these spots 'lakes' are observed."