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Popular Science Monthly 



themselves to journey to Flagstaff or 

 other well-situated observatories are 

 speedily convinced that the canals are 

 objective realities and not illusions. Un- 

 til 1907 the Flagstaff observatory was 

 the only one devoted to the study of 

 planets and especially equipped and 

 maintained for that purpose. In that 

 year M. Jarry Deloges, at the suggestion 

 of Flammarion, started an investigation 

 of Mars in France and Algeria. The 

 result was an astonishing confirmation of 

 the Flagstaff" observations. So similar 

 are the drawings of the Martian disk 

 made nearly seven thousand miles apart 

 that one set might well be taken for a 

 copy of the other. If any evidence were 

 needed to prove that the canals of Mars 

 are real, it is surely found in the actual 

 photographs which were first made ten 

 years ago at Flagstaff by Mr. Lamp- 

 land of Doctor Lowell's staff, and 

 which have been duplicated over again 

 by others since then. Unfortunately the 

 detail in these pictures is so very fine that 

 they cannot be satisfactorily reproduced 

 in the pages of a magazine such as the 

 Popular Science Monthly. 



It must be admitted that it is not ev- 

 eryone who can see the canals. The man 

 who is a successful observer of faint 

 stars may be quite unable to detect fine 

 planetary detail for structural reasons. 

 Moreover, big instruments, especially in 

 high latitudes, are rather a hindrance 

 than a help in observing Mars. 



Granting that Doctor Lowell and 

 his followers are right and that Mars is 

 a living world, what manner of beings 

 are these who have dug canals to water 

 their planet? Unfortunately, no ade- 

 quate conception of a Alartian's physical 



appearance can be formed, although Ed- 

 mond Perrier, a French academician, 

 some years ago boldly declared that they 

 must be very tall and very blonde. Ro- 

 mantic guessing is not scientific deduc- 

 tion. Doctor Lowell in one of his 

 earlier works shows that, while we can 

 never hope to draw a picture of a Mar- 

 tian, we can at least deduce something 

 about him because Mars is a small planet. 

 The bigger the planet on which you 

 live, the harder it is for you to move 

 about. A steam crane would be a wel- 

 come assistance in moving your body 

 about on Jupiter. This is due entirely to 

 the enormous gravitational attraction of 

 Jupiter. The bigger the planet the hard- 

 er are you pulled down to its surface. 

 Mars is only one-ninth as massive as the 

 earth. Hence you would weigh much less 

 on Mars than you do on the earth. A 

 Martian porter could easily carry as 

 much as a terrestrial elephant. A Mar- 

 tian baseball player could bat a ball a 

 mile. Because his planet is not able to 

 pull him down with the attractive force 

 that the earth exerts upon us, the 

 typical Martian has conceivably attained 

 a stature that we would regard as gi- 

 gantic. Three times as large as a human 

 being, this creature has muscles twenty- 

 seven times as effective. His trunk must 

 be fashioned to enclose lungs capable of 

 breathing the excessively attenuated 

 Martian air in sufficiently large quanti- 

 ties to sustain life. As a canal digger — 

 assuming that he had no machinery — he 

 would be a great success, because he 

 could excavate a canal with the speed 

 and efffciency of a small Panama steam 

 shovel. 



1 2 3 4 



These drawings of Mars were made under different conditions by observers who knew 

 nothing of each other's activities. And yet the pictures agree in their essential features. 

 Drawing No. 1 was made October 21, 1909, by E. C. Slipher, of Doctor Lowell's staff, 

 at Flagstaff, Arizona; drawing No. 2 was made by Jarry Desloges four thousand miles 

 from Flagstaff on November 13, 1909; drawing No. 3 was made on January 21, 1914, with 

 the Lowell 46-inch reflecting telescope, a magnifying power of 365 being used; drawing 

 No. 4 made by Mr. Slipher about one hour later on the same night with the same ins- 

 trument and the same magnifying power, shows the same important features 



