172 NOTES ON MAES. 



Icarium Mare, which remained visible for more than an hour. Some 

 one interpreted this by the well-worn surmise that the Martian inhab- 

 itants were signaling to us. Sir Robert Ball tried to convince the 

 public of the fallacy of this in one of his lectures at the Royal Institu- 

 tion, and M. Flammarion, with the same end in view, explained to an 

 interviewer that this appearance was probably a sunset effect on our 

 neighbor. Next, Mr. Nikola Tesla, having a wireless-telegraphy appa- 

 ratus on a mountain in America, said that he had noticed effects on 

 his receiver for which he could not account, and therefore he concluded 

 that they must have been caused by the inhabitants of Mars. The 

 message, according to Mr. Tesla, was not particularly lucid, being, as 

 he said, merely "one, two, three;" but he did not hesitate to explain 

 that it is quite within the bounds of possibility to establish electrical 

 communication with our neighbor. These utterances, which have been 

 cabled at length to the English papers, have furnished texts for many 

 jocose paragraphs and small poems; the interviewers have been busy. 

 * * * M. Loewy very naturally asked his interviewer, "Why 

 Mars ? How did Mr. Tesla know that it was not Venus or Mercury 

 who was signaling ? " 



A third matter, which comes under the heading, relates to a liequest 

 of a Mme. Guzmann, who in 1891 left 100,000 francs to be awarded as a 

 prize to the first person who shall be successful in communicating with 

 another world other than the planet Mars. The Academy hesitated to 

 accept the bequest, but has at last done so, influenced, perhaps, by 

 the fact that the will goes on to say that each time the prize has not 

 been awarded for a period of five jenrs the accumulated interest shall 

 be attributed to a work seriously helping the progress of astronomy. 

 The Academy, in accepting the trust, remarks that the intentions of 

 the founder will be scrupulously executed, and quotes from Mon- 

 taigne: " It is a stupid presumption to condemn as false all that which 

 may not appear likely to us. There is no greater madness in the 

 world than to reduce everything to the measure of our capacity and 

 competence." But why is Mars excluded ? Is it to bar Mr. Tesla ? 



