THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



varying accounts which astronomers have given respect- 

 ing the polar flattening of Mars may find their true 

 explanation in the theory we have been considering. 

 It is certainly remarkable that eminent astronomers, 

 like Sir W. Herschel, Arago, Dawes, Bessel, Hind, Main, 

 and others, should have arrived at the most conflicting 

 results on an observational matter of such extreme 

 simplicity. We have values of the compression varying 

 from Sir Wm. Herschel's, who made the polar diameter 

 of the planet a full sixteenth less than the equatorial 

 diameter, to Dawes's result that the planet is not flat- 

 tened at all. Nay, some observations have even sug- 

 gested that the planet is elongated at the poles. If 

 great changes of elevation take place at the poles of Mars, 

 owing to the rapid process of accumulation of the Mar- 

 tian snows, these discrepancies would be accounted for. 

 But whatever opinion we form on details of this sort, 

 it appears tolerably clear that in all its leading features 

 the planet Mars is quite unlike the earth, and unfit to 

 be the abode of creatures resembling those which 

 inhabit our world. Neither animal nor vegetable forms 

 of life known to us could exist on Mars. To the 

 creatures which thrive in our arctic regions, or near 

 the summits of lofty mountains, the torrid zone of 

 Mars would be altogether too bleak and dismal for 

 existence to be possible there. Our hardiest forms of 

 vegetable life would not live a single hour if they could 

 be transplanted to Mars. Life, animal as well as vege- 

 table, there may indeed be on the ruddy planet. Eea- 

 soning creatures may exist there as on the earth. But 



