Of all the stars in the sky that we should consider in detail if we are looking for evidence of life and intelligence, Mars stands preeminent. In Moon and Mars, we have unique sources of direct evidence available to us. They are near enough for us to photograph or to see prominent surface features. The information we derive from this kind of direct examination, together with what we may deduce, places us in a better position to judge the status of extraterrestrial affairs than all the other evidence put together.
Mars has been a bone of contention for years. The trouble began when Giovanni Schiaparelli, an Italian astronomer, in 1877 announced that he had seen some startling sights on Mars. He said he had seen a most significant kind of lines. He described them as being on the border of invisibility, flashing in and our instead of holding their visibility. He said he had been able to identify them only after many months of practicing, and then only when observer and atmosphere were in perfect condition. He declared that they were straight, geodetic lines, following great circles, and he wondered how such artificial-appearing markings could be accounted for. A11 this implied that the lines were not narural effects, but instead were the creation of intelligence.
Schiaparelli called the lines "canali," which in Italian means "channels." But "canali" was close enough to English "canals" to live down any small differences, so "canals" it was, and this is what the lines have come to be called. Astronomers everywhere went searching for them, but most of them could not find them. They came to be branded as a figment of Schiaparelli's imagination or a vagary of his eyesight. But this did not influence the Italian. He was not discouraged by the hostile reception his announcement had received. Instead, he became fired with the thought that he might have been selected by Fate to be the first Earthian to have recognized evidence of the existence of intelligence on another world. He carried on, perfected his apparatus, trained himself and his assistants, checked everything with the latter, and in a little while threw another astronomical bomb. This time he announced that in some cases the canals were doubled; that there was a network of them; that they intersected in many places; and that at some of the points of intersection round spots existed. Somebody casually referred to these spots as "oases" and, as in the case of "canali" and "canals," "oases" became the accepted name for the dark spots at the intersection of the canals
This second announcement set the astronomical world by the ears again, and everybody went hunting for the double lines. They could not be found by many astronomers, and again were they branded as a vagary of Schiaparelli's peculiar eyesight. But about this time some Other astronomers began to suspect that they had seen something. On top of this was the intensely intriguing possibility that Earth had happened upon the first bit of evidence that intelligent beings existed elsewhere. Blaming Schiaparelli's claim on erratic eyesight. was too easy an explanation. And so astronomers, while guarded in what they would admit, continued to keep their telescopes on Mars.
Percival Lowell, an American, appeared upon the troubled scene at this juncture. He had been graduated from Harvard, and astronomical work had absorbed him from boyhood. He built a telescope of his own, mounted it on the roof of his father's house, and began looking into the Mars business on his own account' After some years he became possessed of large private means, and he determined to go to the bottom of the matter. He found a spot in Arizona that had an elevation of 7,000 feet, and he had the famous Clark build for him the finest telescope that could be made. This was mounted at Flagstaff, Arizona, and in due time the Lowell Observatory got down to business.
Lowell was a remarkable man. He possessed a superb physique, took great care of himself, and trained his naturally acute vision by all manner of expedients. It was told of him that while walking with a friend he detected on the ground a lot of infant spiders adhering to the abdomen of the mother spider, herself a very small object. To his associates such things were beyond visibility. Later on we shall see how it frequently happens that an individual appears with some organ in an extraordinarily highly developed state. Lowell evidently had eyesight which was far beyond the average.
After he had settled down at Flagstaff and had spent a year and more making sure of what he was getting, Lowell boldly announced that not only had he seen Schiaparelli's 'canals, but he had seen several of the doubles, the spots at intersections, and any number of other details that Schiaparelli had not reported. He submitted maps of what he and his associates had seen, produced all manner of corroborative evidence, and altogether threw confusion into astronomical circles generally.
There was a greater hubbub than ever Lowell was not as tolerant as Schiaparelli in his treatment of those who had declined to believe in the existence of the canals. This aroused enmity, and feelings reached a stage such as sometimes exists in politics and marked the controversy between Peary and Dr. Cook. Certain persons could not bring themselves to credit Peary with the discovery of the North Pole because of the rough manner he had adopted in denouncing Cook; and so, having no other alternative, they sided with Cook. The Mars controversy is very much alive even to-day, and such a recognized authority as Jeans says that we cannot believe in the markings on Mars until we can photograph them. This argument has a better sound than it really deserves, because the eye can see some things that cannot be photographed. But we are not here to take sides. We want to know about both sides and then make up our own minds.
It is now time to see with our own eyes just what the alleged markings on the surface of Mars look like to those who insist they have seen them. Probably the highest authority and the man who was best qualified to specialize on Mars was Percival Lowell. We shall therefore take first Lowell's wonderful globe of Mars, constructed in 1907, which is shown in Figure 10. It should be studied carefully and given the consideration it warrants, for this model of Lowell's may be one of the choicest of mankind's historical specimens in the centuries to come. Certainly, if Lowell turns out to have been right, it will be. In contemplating this picture of Mars as Lowell saw it, we are looking at one of man's early efforts to Peer into the cosmos for a fellow intelligence. We acquire something of the feeling that comes over us when we regard for the first time something that has never before been seen by mortal eye. It suggests that we are being given a great privilege of a curtain drawn aside and opportunity offered to view some great secret. After examining the markings that Lowell insisted he had seen on the surface of Mars, we recognize that the question we should first attempt to settle in our minds is whether Schiaparelli, Lowell, Ferrotin, Thollon, and all the others actually saw real markings or whether they only thought they saw them. There is a large amount of evidence on the question. That of Edward S. Morse is representative of much of it. Morse was a microscopist and trained to look at very small detail. He became so interested in the Mars controversy that he went to Flagstaff and asked to be permitted to spend some time looking through the telescope at Mars. He asked not to be told what to look for or where to look. He sought to avoid any possible warping of his ideas as to what he saw. In describing how he started he says:
Professor Percival Lowell, of Flagstaff, Arizona, finally gave me the opportunity I so much desired, and through his courtesy and kindness) I was enabled to observe Mars every night for nearly six weeks through his twenty-four inch refractor, the last and probably the best telescope ever made by Clark, mounted in one of the steadiest atmospheres in the world and at an altitude above sea-level of over 7,000 feet. Imagine my surprise and chagrin when I first saw the beautiful disk of Mars through this superb telescope. Not a line! Not a marking! The object I saw could only be compared in appearance to the open mouth of a crucible filled with molten gold. Slight discolorations here and there and evanescent areas outlined for the tenth of a second, but not a determinate line or spot to be seen. Had I stopped that night, or even a week later, I might have joined the ranks of certain observers and said "illusions" or something worse. And right here it was that my experience in microscopic work helped me, for, remembering the hours--nay, days -I had worked, in making out structural features in delicate organisms which my professional friends could not see at all, I realized that patient observation would be required if I was to be successful in my efforts. My despair, however, was overwhelming when Professor Lowell and his assistants, looking for a few moments at the same object, would draw on paper the features which had been plainly revealed to them, consisting of definite shaded regions, a number of canals and other markings, of which, with the utmost scrutiny, I could hardly detect a trace. For the first time I realized that observing fixed diaphanous membranes under a microscope with a rigid stand, and within four inches of one's nose, was quite a different matter from observing a brilliant disk 4,200 miles in diameter, 52,000,000 miles away, with an oscillating atmosphere of unknown depth between.
Night after night I examined this golden opalescent disk, drawing each time such features as I could convey by memory from the ocular to the drawing table, and, little by little, new features were detected, and to my delight the drawings agreed with those made by the others.
Since the drawings made by the four observers coincided, it was agreed that we had not been victims of subjective phenomena. Furthermore as I discovered afterwards, by comparison, the drawings I made not only agreed with theirs but with those made by other observers, at different times, in other parts of the world. So slow were my acquisitions, however, that it soon became evident that at least months of continuous observation would be necessary before the more delicate markings would be revealed to me.1
Morse kept a log of what he saw each night. This log has an entry in it every night from May 14 to June 15, inclusive, excepting May zB and 29 and June 6 and 8. It is the best kind of circumstantial evidence, and it is convincing. Morse gradually acquired the technique to see the markings, and he made many drawings of them which agreed with other drawings made at other observatories. The detection of the lines and other surface markings evidently can be accomplished only by the most acute vision working with the most perfect apparatus under the most perfect air conditions. Schiaparelli writes that he found it imperative "to abstain from everything that could affect the nervous system, from narcotics and alcohol, and especially from the abuse of coffee, which I found to be exceedingly prejudicial to the accuracy of observation."
Lowell accounts for some failures to see the markings as follows: "Not only was there no sign of a canal, but even the main markings showed dishearteningly indefinite. This vacancy of expression was due to the Martian date. It was the very nick of time to see nothing, for the part of the planet most presented to the Earth was then at the height of the dead season, and in this fact lies the key to much past undetection and present unbelief in the phenomenon of the canals." Among the many who concede having seen the markings are Perrotin, Thollon, Flammarion, Fauth, Williams, Pickering, Douglass, Lampland, and Schaeberle.
Why have these markings not been photographed if they exist and if they can be seen by so many independent observers? It is because the eye can detect extremely faint impressions which flash in only now and again for a fraction of a second. The photographic plate is not able to get a long enough exposure, and anyway the image would be blurred because of the unsteadiness of the air. The eye is a very wonderful organ. The trained retina is an extremely sensitive discriminator of light values, and it is not disturbed by a moderate amount of unsteadiness of the image. In fact, it probably is assisted. It is more than likely that faint markings just on the threshold of visibility would be detectable by our eyes but not be photographable. We allow no standing to the argument that because they cannot be photographed, they cannot exist. The writer at least is persuaded that the markings as reported really exist and that when we look at Lowell's model of Mars, we are looking at a pretty fair representation of actual fact. This is a very far-reaching decision to make for if these long, straight, geodetic lines are there and they are artificial, then we must concede that intelligent beings constructed them.
When we grant the existence of the lines on Mars, we launch ourselves into the most fascinating speculation in all astronomy. What would make geodetic, great-circle markings? Every conceivable and inconceivable theory has been offered to escape conceding that they were made by intelligent beings. One of these goes so far as to suggest that meteors went shooting around on the surface of the planet and scratched these lines; another, that they are cracks on the surface and allied to the rays and streaks on the surface of the Moon. Many students of Mars have gone to extreme lengths to photograph specimens of natural cracks or lines that would compare with those on Mars. The cracks in old porcelain, in dried mud, in asphalt pavement, in earthquake areas, and in the craters of the Moon have been photographed from all sorts of distances in an endeavor to get something in the way of a natural crack that could be made to look like the lines on Mars. Artificial lines, such as the long and straight highway and railroad lines in some of the mid-western states, the streets and avenues in some of our modern cities, the irrigation ditches of the far-western states, and the canals of Holland, have been mapped and photo- graphed and studied from what would correspond to a great height. A comparison of the two types of lines. unavoidably leads to the conclusion that the artificial features are like the Martian lines. We seem to be forced by the evidence to conclude that we are dealing with something artificial and not natural. If we are right in this conclusion, then does it follow that the Martians are more intelligent than we are ? We Earthians certainly have no works on Earth that would compare in magnitude with the lines on Mars. Before we get too deeply into judging what sort of chaps the Martians may be, it will be wise to look into the general conditions existing on the planet. There is an atmosphere-one of the first requisites of a well- ordered planet. Wright estimates that the Martian atmosphere is of the order of 60 miles in thickness. It is composed of a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen and is such that we can call it air. The air pressure on the surface is about what it is at the summit of Mount Everest in the Himalaya Mountains. The oxygen content in the air is about 15 per cent of what ours is. Temperatures are below those on Earth because Mars is farther from the Sun. On the equator during the day the temperature appears to average around 5o degrees Fahrenheit. The days are 24hours and 37 minutes long, which is close to our Earth day. The years are 22 months long, or nearly twice as long as our years; this makes the seasons correspondingly longer than ours. As the Sun sets in the late afternoon on Mars, the cold comes, and before the warm morning Sun reappears, the temperature must get down below freezing. The polar regions are snow-capped, as the photographs in Figure 12 clearly show. The cold at the poles must be well under 100 degrees below zero Conspicuous changes occur on the surface with the changing seasons. The dark areas increase in size in the spring. As summer advances, they attain a maximum which they hold for about 50 days. As the fall season advances, they fade. The fading is in color as well as in intensity; the blue-green of the spring and summer turns to chocolate brown. The dates of the changes are what would be expected if the changes were produced by the growth and decline of vegetation' Water is scarce on Mars. There are few clouds, but the white polar snow caps and snowstorms establish the fact there is some moisture. Large areas are evidently dry deserts. What are thought to be tremendous dust or sandstorms have been noted. The water evidently collects at the poles in the form of ice and snow. As the spring season advances, the snow cap melts during the days, and large-quantities of water are liberated and flow down to the lower latitudes. With this general outline of conditions, let us consider the canals ant what we have a right to infer from them' The most natural inference to draw is that the lines have something to do with bringing the precious water down to where vegetation and any other form of life can get it' No less an authority than W. H. Pickering has suggested that the canals might mark waterways which bring water down from the poles, that irrigation extending back-from each side of the canals may develop vegetation, and that this vegetation marks an area wide enough for us to see from Earth. >P>The construction of any such waterways as this would indicate an intelligence and engineering abilities. of a much higher order than exist on Earth, for certainly we have left no mark on our Earth that approaches the lines on Mars. Mars is smaller than Earth and cooled before Earth cooled. It is probable, as we shall see as we Progress in this discussion, that life established itself on Mars when temperatures became sufficiently low, just as it did on Earth. This would have been many hundreds of thou- sands of centuries ahead of Earth. Probably life would have evolved at something about the same rate on Mars as it did on Earth. We know of no reason why it should not. If this actually happened, then intelligence had more time to develop on Mars than it has had on Earth. This would explain great, broad, artificial lanes running for tremendous distances and flowing great circles.
Water is not the only requisite for vegetable life and the animal life that feeds off it. Transportation and convenience to sources of supply are equally important. What would be more likely that the facilities for supplying and distributing water should also be those for providing transportation and general living? And in a land where water is scarce and precious and limited to restricted waterways, what more likely than that civilization should confine itself to the neighborhood of these waterways? On Earth we human beings have settled over much of the surface of our planet because water is present nearly everywhere. Our deserts are the only exception. When we view the lines or canals on Mars, it may be that we are regarding the settled areas, where a race of intelligent beings are living their daily lives and going about their affairss as we are in our various scattered countries on Earth.
We can form no conception of the kind of creature it may be that possesses the intelligence that built the canals on Mars. There is not one chance in a million million that he resembles man, for reasons which we shall see later. He could be a flying creature, although we doubt it on account of the thin air. He could be a swimming thing, although we doubt this because of the shortage of water. If he is a land creature, his physical dimensions and his construction would be vastly different from ours because the force of gravity is only 38 per cent of what it is on Earth. If his mental abilities are as much in advance of ours as his globe-encircling canals would indicate, we should expect him to have radio communication developed beyond anything that we can imagine. The same could be said of his astronomical abilities. If they are so developed, it could be that the Martians know that we exist. If we have been able to identify the canals on Mars in 300 years from the time we produced our first telescope, the Martians, who may have developed their first telescope 300,000 years ago probably are able to observe some of our works. If they have, then they know that we are intelligent beings too.
If radio communication is enormously ahead of ours, who shall say that the Martians have not been calling us for several centuries, hoping that eventually a day would come when we should have arrived at a stage of intellectual development that would enable us to identify the call and answer it? But we must not wander tot fm afield on this fascinating line of speculation. Before we become too deeply involved, let u, learn some of the other things that we need to know. Let us leave this most interesting of all our neighbors in space and return to him after we have completed our general survey.
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