236 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1956 



thing out of the sounds, as it is in the highest degree improbable that 

 they would make use of our terrestrial Morse code ! 



More nonsense has been written about Mars than about any other 

 planet. The only thing which science has established is the almost 

 certain existence of plant life on Mars, and the possibility that some 

 form of animal life may also exist. Beyond this we cannot go unless 

 the field is thrown open to speculation, when of course there is no 

 limit. There may be people on Mars and they may be anything you 

 like to imagine, but we know nothing about them, and up to the present 

 time nothing has been picked up which suggests that they are attempt- 

 ing to contact us. 



It seems reasonable to conclude that if intelligences do exist, they 

 should most earnestly desire to leave their in many ways inhospitable 

 world, and visit ours. Even if they did succeed in the construction of 

 practical spaceships capable of traveling to the earth, our dense 

 atmosphere would prove a serious and possibly fatal barrier. Just as 

 we would be asphyxiated if we attempted to breathe the thin atmos- 

 phere of Mars, so the Martians would be drowned by immersion in 

 our dense atmosphere. Only in the higher regions, near the summits 

 of our loftiest mountains, could they hope to survive, at least for 

 several generations and until they became acclimatized to their new 

 environment. 



Mystery still surrounds the canals, bound up as they are with the 

 greater mystery of life. As a telescopic object, Mars is often rather 

 disappointing to casual observers. People imagine that we know more 

 than science admits, and expect a large telescope to show the planet 

 like a huge full moon with canals clearly revealed, and possibly even 

 see the canal boats which are imagined as passing to and fro along 

 these waterways. The actual view shows a small and not always 

 round disk of a yellowish-red color, on which the polar caps may be 

 plain enough, as are the darker markings, while the canals generally 

 appear as rather diffused streaks. Should the atmospheric condi- 

 tions be imperfect, as is usually the case, the view is even more disap- 

 pointing, as the whole thing is "fuzzy" and unsteady. 



The proper place to solve the mystery of Mars is from one or another 

 of his satellites. The nearer to the planet is the larger, and may have 

 a diameter of around 15 miles, while it is so close to the planet (only 

 3,900 miles from its surface) that it has to scamper around it in 7 

 hours 39 minutes 26.65 seconds. The outer moon is only 10 or 12 miles 

 in dimeter, and takes 1 day 6 hours 21 minutes 15.68 seconds to com- 

 plete a revolution at its distance of 12,900 miles from the surface. 



The inner moon, Phobos, actually makes more than three revolu- 

 tions around Mars while the planet turns around once, so to the 

 Martians it must seem to rise in the west and set in the east. On 

 the other hand the outer moon, Deimos, revolves around Mars in a 



