LIFE IN MARS. 119 



to be a phenomenon peculiar to our own earth) may 

 very readily avoid it, and yet not be debarred from 

 visiting any portion of their miniature world, save one 

 or two extensive islands. Even these are separated by 

 such narrow seas from the neighbouring continents, 

 that we may regard it as fairly within the power of the 

 Martial Brunels and Stephensoris to bridge over the 

 intervening straits, and so to enable the advocates of 

 land-voyaging to visit these portions of their planet. 

 This view is encouraged by the consideration that all 

 engineering operations must be much more readily 

 effected in Mars than on our own earth. The force of 

 gravity is so small at the surface of Mars that a mass 

 which on the earth weighs a pound, would weigh on 

 Mars but about six and a quarter ounces, so that in every 

 way the work of the engineer, and of his ally the 

 spadesman, would be lightened. A being shaped as 

 men are, but fourteen feet high, would be as active as 

 a man six feet high, and many times more powerful. 

 On such a scale, then, might the Martial navvies be 

 framed. But that is not all. The soil in which they 

 would work would weigh very much less, mass for mass, 

 than that in which our terrestrial spadesmen labour. 

 So that, between the far greater powers of Martial 

 beings, and the far greater lightness of the materials 

 they would have to deal with in constructing roads, 

 canals, bridges, or the like, we may very reasonably con- 

 clude that the progress of such labours would be very 

 much more rapid, and their scale very much more 

 important than in the case of our own earth. 



