Life in Other Worlds Rlcltard A. Proctor. 



43 



ns tho moon could never require such a emit orifice in 

 which to manifest the outlctl It seems to mo tliat there 

 wore downfalls of meteors, anil that those great niiissrs 

 f all in x flown, as Myers conceived, upon tile moon, pro- 

 duced these enormous craters. 



The artist has made a slight mistake hero. You will 

 see that the floor hero upon which these smaller craters 

 are *bown lies quite high from tho surface of the moon, 

 but it uppeara from a careful study that tho floors lin 

 rather below the surface. Instead of being, like ./Etna 

 and Vesuvius, aliove tho ground, they aro probably de- 

 pressed lielow the general level, precisely what wo 

 would expect if irreat im-ieono bodies forced their way 

 down, and the place where they haa fallen had been 

 covered over with a slow filling up of plastic matter. 

 PKOF. MORTON'S LUNAR PICTURE. 



I wish to correct a remark made in my former course 

 of lectures about those pictures. You have one here 

 drawn by James Hamilton of Philadelphia. In my former 

 course I told you these pictures were drawn by him, and 

 then I showed another picture, remarking that it was 

 drawn with much less artistic skill. The real fact 

 is this. Just before I gave the lecture, a letter 

 from Prof. Morton was placed in my hands 

 and while I was still arranging the pictures, glancing 

 over the let cer, I found this statement made, that the 

 pictures were drawn by James Hamilton, except one, 

 which was drawn "with much less artistic skill." I 

 forgot the natural interpretation I ought to have put 

 upon that letter, for, knowing Prof. Morton's disin- 

 tereste 'ness and modesty, I might have known that he 

 was the artist of inferior artistic skill, and that it was a 

 little mere self-abnegation. Reading the letter and 

 stating the facts I simply brought them out as in the let- 

 ter; and there was Prof. Morton present all the time and 

 allowing me to state it. [Laughter.] We shall have this 

 picture brought on the screen. I thiuk there is much in it 

 indicating great artistic skill, and not only so, but there 

 is a clear recognition on Prof. Morton's part of the way 

 in which the craters must have appeared. 



[With these delicate words of compliment the picture 

 was exhibited. 1 I think this is tho real appearance the 

 craters must have presented on the moon saucer-shaped. 

 Here is a littlj work of imagination a little village with 

 a church, corresponding to the suggestion made about 

 requesting Sir John Herschel to advise some means by 

 which religious instruction might be conveyed to the 

 benighted inhabitants of tne moon. [Laughter and 

 applause.] 



I have another remark to make about this picture. 

 I laughed about this picture, saying that it was a mere 

 fancy of the artist. But it would appear that some gen- 

 tleman has constructed a picture of this sort, and as- 

 suming this was a photograph taken from his picture, 

 he grew highly indignant and wrote to THE TRIBUNE, 

 saying that he had good reason for placing upon his pic- 

 ture that little village and that little church. His letter 

 abused me in round terms for taking that little village 

 to task. The fact is, I did not borrow from that artist, 

 did not even know his name, and the picture I really 

 used was this one of Prof. Morton's, and I am sure he 

 would not be angry were 1 to suggest tha probability 

 that villages do not at the present time exist on the 

 moon. 



THE CONDITION OP MAUS. 



I shall now pass to the consideration of tho planet 

 Mara, introducing a picture showing that, thi.s one 

 planet is the only one which gives signs of being the 

 abode of life. Here wo liave learned that these rugged 

 regions ure continents, and these dark regions are 



oceans. We Know certainly that th^y nro oceans, and 

 that the familiar water, such as we drink, exists in the 

 planet Mars. We know it as certainly as if we had sent 

 some one there to bring us back a pint o* 

 it to analyze, and, therefore, when wo see great 

 \\ id ' regions hiding over these well-Known marks on 

 Mars, we know that they aro clouds, ami therefore we 

 Know that storms, rain, sun and elouiis exist there. 

 Then recognizing the fact that there are continents 

 above tho general level of tho ocean, wo know those 

 rains must find their way down to the ocean, andean 

 only do so along brooks and rivers, gradually growing 

 larger until they pour their waters upon tho ocean. Wo 

 have then all the terrestrial signs, BO to speak, that we 

 recognize as in tho case of our earth, marking tho latter 

 as the abode of life. 



It maybe thought at the first view, that we have a 

 planet which we can hardly dismiss from tho list of habit- 

 able worlds. But, first of all, M irs is a much smaller 

 planet and must have had much less inherent heat, 

 and, therefore, on that account alone bo a much colder 

 planet. I reminded you of the apparent size of the sun 

 as seen from the planet Mars, and how much smaller it 

 appeared than the sun we see. Then tho probability is 

 that Mars, being relatively smaller, the atmosphere 

 would be rarer relatively, and cold would result from 

 that also. All the facts about Mars suggest an intense 

 cold, which would render life impossible to creatures 

 constituted as we are. 



Here is another picture showing the planet Mars and 

 the extent of its polar snows. Tho extent of these polar 

 snows is not so much greater than those on the earth as 

 to force us to believe that there is a much greater de- 

 gree of cold. There (pointing to the picture) are the 

 polar snows in the Winter time of that planet, and here 

 you have tho polar snow in much smaller extent in tho 

 Summer time. But you must recollect that if the quan- 

 tity of water is less than on our earth the vapor would 

 be less and the quantity of snow or rain fall would bo 

 less, and therefore less than on our earth. Here is an- 

 other picture showing you these same polar snows more 

 perfectly. Here you see they extend to a degree of alti- 

 tude corresponding in Mars to tliat of New-York, 

 ami showing that in the Winter timo an exceed- 

 ing bitterness of cold must prevail. But I thiuk we 

 must not apply that question of snow to the ordinary 

 analogies that we have In the earth. We, must take into 

 consideration that a great intensity of cold must there 

 prevail, and if Mars was intended to bo the abode of 

 life the time has now passed when life could have ex- 

 isted. Tne conclusion forced upon us is that the rela- 

 tively small extent of the oceans, and therefore the rel- 

 atively small atmosphere of Mirs, precludes the idea of 

 tliat planet being the abode of life. 



Here is a map of Mars, and you see tho way in which 

 oceans and seas are mixed up together, with no excess 

 of ocean, as in the case of our earth. Another curious 

 fact about Mars is the way in which travel would be 

 possible from any one part of the planet to another 

 without leaving any particular element that a person 

 most desired to remain on. He may go on laud or water, 

 just as he likes. He may go all over the planet on land, 

 and visit any part of it, or he mav travel all over it by 

 water, and visit every river, bay, ocean, and lake. 



THE ASTEROIDS DOES NATURE WASTE 1 



And now we pass from tueso planets with the thought, 

 as I conceive, tliat we have not yet found any one of 

 them that can at present bo the a>)odo of life. In the 

 case of the moon and Mars we ecem to see that life haa 

 passed away, that those planets have become rcfrigor- 



