MARS, RECEXT STUDIES OF. 



513 





G, which is suggestive of a possible terminus 

 of its navigable waters, it is entered by three 

 canals coming, as usual, from different direc- 

 tions, one of them suggesting by* its crooked- 

 ness that it may have been a river flowing into 

 the estuary and forming its head-waters. Fol- 

 lowing this great water-course about 300 miles 

 southward, we see two canals converging to a 

 point on its southern bank ; and, directly op- 

 posite, a single one, pursuing the general direc- 

 tion of both, starts from its northern bank, as 

 if there were design in securing a continuous 

 direction of the canal-journey on both sides of 

 the great estuary. Some hundreds of miles 

 still farther southward, we find two other 

 canals entering on the northeastern shore ; that 

 at the tenth degree of north latitude being re- 

 markable for first entering a lake from the 

 northward and then, by a short canal, entering 

 the gulf of the estuary from the lake. 



If we now follow the coast-line, examining 

 carefully as we go, we shall find many of the 

 water-ways that enter the ocean growing wider 

 as they approach the coast-line, precisely as do 

 our own rivers, great and small, and that every 

 one of those natural water-ways has been con- 

 nected with the canal system. "We again find 

 examples of two canals converging to a place 

 of junction and then continuing, in the general 

 course of both, toward an objective point far- 

 ther on, as pointed out by the arrows. This is 

 so striking a feature of the economy of skillful 

 engineering that it is very difficult to reconcile 

 it with any other origin. If now we retrace 

 our wanderings over the land, we can hardly 

 help noticing that several canals radiate from 

 common centers, some of those centers having 

 as many as seven radiating water-ways, others 

 six, others five, and so on, down to three. But 

 it is also obvious, so far as we can read from 

 the map, that they are not the locations of lakes 

 or other natural water-ways to which an en- 

 gineer might be induced to converge a system 

 of canals for the purpose of economizing labor 

 by gain of water-way, as in the cases already 

 examined, and we are left to the conclusion 

 that they are centers of population. Of this 

 character is the point marked H, about thirteen 

 degrees south of the equator, near the verge of 

 the western hemishere, and also I and J, lying 

 between the equator and ten degrees north ; 

 and with those as guides others of similar char- 

 acter may be readily distinguished. Let us 

 direct our attention to one of them, K, at the 

 sixty-seventh parallel of north latitude, on the 

 western hemisphere ; then let us recall the fact 

 that the snn moves seven degrees farther pole- 

 ward on Mars in its summer-time than it does 

 on our earth ; then, in relation to the climatic 

 condition of these two planets, the assumed 

 center of population at the sixty-seventh paral- 

 lel of north latitude on Mars is exactly the same 

 as that of St. Petersburg at the sixtieth parallel 

 on our earth, so that, assuming this point of 

 convergence of this canal system to be a popu- 

 lous center upon Mars, is merely suggesting that 



TOL. XXVIII. 33 A 



there may be a large city on that world bearing 

 the same relations to its climatic conditions 

 that St. Petersburg does to ours, and that it 

 also is the most northerly of the great cii 



Having then passed in review this canal sys- 

 tem of our neighboring planet, and found it re- 

 plete with evidences of design, such as charac- 

 terize the science of skillful engineering on our 

 own planet, let us a.-sume. for the sake of argu- 

 ment, that we ha^e overdrawn the testimony, 

 and that the markings have resulted from 

 forces that accompanied the creative events of 

 that globe. These two planets have their axis 

 of rotation so inclined to the planes of their 

 orbits about the snn that the alternations of their 

 seasons are practically alike. When the sun 

 moves northward on one or the other, the snow- 

 line recedes toward the north pole. "When the 

 sun retires from its northern summer solstice, 

 the snow-line advances down the northern lati- 

 tudes, just in proportion as the source of heat 

 recedes. The analogy between these concur- 

 rent phenomena of the two worlds is complete, 

 and both, also, are divided into land and sea. 

 So far, then, as the logic of facts can reach, the 

 links of analogy are unbroken. This warrants 

 us in assuming that the creative events of both 

 worlds were equally analogous, for " like causes 

 produce like effects," from which it follows 

 that the primal waters of Mars came down up- 

 on that globe from an enveloping cloud of vapor 

 covering its molten mineral substances, and 

 thereby hardening them into the rock forms 

 due to their composition, as the granite of our 

 world hardened into its present form under 

 like conditions. But whatever may be the 

 mineral composition that assumes upon Mars 

 the same geological relations that the granite 

 does to our world, it was the primal sea-bot- 

 tom of that globe, and, as sea-bottom, was 

 covered with water long before its upheaval 

 above the surface occurred, as in the case of 

 our own primal sea- bottom. That this under- 

 lying Martial sea- bottom was genuine rock- 

 formation, a glance at the facts will demon- 

 strate. Rocks and clays are all combinations 

 of metallic elementary matter with oxygen or 

 the other five elementary forms of ' % the oxygen 

 group,'' but the oxygen far exceeds in the quan- 

 tity of its combinations all the other four. The 

 presence of water on Mars proves the abundant 

 presence of oxygen, for it is an oxide of hydro- 

 gen. Metals are all forms of matter in its ele- 

 mentary condition, and most, if not all of them, 

 will decompose water by setting the hydrogen 

 free and combining with the oxygen it contains : 

 therefore the metallic elementary forms of 

 matter upon Mars must have entered into com- 

 bination with oxygen, even if no oxidizing 

 agent were present but water. Hence the 

 crust of the planet Mars is rock. The cool- 

 ing of this rock sea-bottom, as in the case <'f 

 our own world, caused it to contract or expand, 

 as the case may have been, and therefore to 

 wrinkle; the portions that bent upward rose 

 above the surface of the overlying sea, aud 



