42 CHELTENHAM COLLEGE NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, 
The day of Mars is about half-an-hour longer than our day, but 
his year is nearly 700 days. His seasons are similar to those of the 
earth, but instead of three months summer he gets about six. Also 
of course six winter months. 
In 1877, Professor Schiaparelli, of Milan, made a remarkable dis- 
covery which justifies us in calling the dark parts oceans. He noticed 
that the continents of Mars were traversed by many dark marks 
stretching from sea to sea, which he called canals or channels They 
are of immense length and show according to the Journalists that the 
Martians are much cleverer than we are. We make little things like 
the Suez Canal, a poor roo miles long, while the Martians make theirs 
a thousand or more. The idea that these canals are artificial is of 
course absurd, considering their size. It is supposed that they are 
great floods, huge extensions of the oceans into the continents. 
Clouds have been observed on Mars and the white polar caps shrink 
in his summer However it seems quite impossible to believe that 
water exists on Mars in a liquid form, or as clouds, for owing to his 
diatance from the sun he receives half as much heat as the earth, as 
his temperature is, by a simple sum in preportion, about 240° below 
Zero Fahrenheit at the latitude of London, any water must be 
permanently frozen. This climate would suit only the people whom 
Dante saw punished by cold in the Inferno. He says of them: ° 
“‘ And when to me their faces they had lifted 
Their eyes, which first were only moist within, 
Gushed o’er their eyelids, and the frost congealed 
The tears between and locked them up again.” 
But if these oceans are not water, they, perhaps, are liquid carbonic 
acid. This gas can be liquified by cold, and it can also be frozen 
solid and then appears as a snow-white mass. In a very cold climate 
it would behave like water on the earth. However this great cold 
and the absence of water on Mars is a disputed point, Dr. Huggins, 
who has done marvels with the spectroscope assures us that water 
vapour exists in the atmosphere of Mars. Mr. Maunder of the 
Royal Observatory, Greenwich, is also of his opinion. But the Editor 
of ‘ Knowledge’ writes in October “ I am quite prepared to believe 
that the white polar caps of Mars are due to the snow-white crystals 
of carbonic acid gas,” 
This disputed point is important, for the possibility of life on Mars 
depends upon it. 
The only way to decide this knotty point is to ask the Martians 
themselves “ Are you there ?” 
