C. B. WABEIFG. 73-(43) 



blood could endure the terrific changes of tempera- 

 ture implied in days and nights each equal to four- 

 teen days and nights on the earth. However, we are not 

 permitted to indulge in any such play of the imagina- 

 tion, for it has been shown by Lagrange and Newton, as 

 apxn'ovingly quoted by Prof. Newcomb, that the differ- 

 ence in elevation of the two hemispheres, is exceedingly 

 small, at most only a few feet, the longest axis being only 

 one hundred and eighty-six feet longer than the mean 

 axis. Prof. Newcomb well remarks of the more distant 

 side of the moon : " The atmosphere with which it has 

 been covered, and the inhabitants with which it has been 

 peopled, are no better than the products of a poetical im- 

 agination. " 



To sum all up in the fewest possible words : Life for 

 corporeal beings is impossible in the sun, Jupiter, Sat- 

 urn, Uranus, and Neptune, because of their being yet in 

 a non-solid, if not in an actually gaseous condition, a 

 condition due, of course, to intense heat. For the same 

 reason, life is impossible on their satellites for they, too, 

 are gaseous. 



A temperature above that of boiling water forbids the 

 existence of animals in Mercury and Venus, while in 

 Mars, with a climate mild enough, there seems to be an 

 absence of vegetation. On the earth's moon, there is 

 neither air nor water. Comets cannot be the abode of 

 creatures formed of flesh and blood. Hence, so far as I 

 can see, a negative answer must be given to the question 

 which is the subject of this paper. Other worlds are not 

 inhabited. 



To most persons this is a conclusion as startling as it 

 is unwelcome. That this globe of ours, so small in com- 

 parison with the other worlds is the only one inhabited, 

 seems so incredible that I gladly strengthen my position 

 by a paragraph taken almost in his own words from Prof. 

 Newcomb' s Astronomy : ' £ Enthusiastic writers not only 

 sometimes people the planets with inhabitants, but calcu- 

 late the possible population by the number of square 

 miles of surface. The extreme improbability of this, 

 at least in the case of any one planet, may be seen by re- 

 iiectingon the brevity of human life on our globe, when 

 compared with the existence of the globe itself. The lat- 

 ter has probably been revolving in its orbit ten millions 



