EARTH’S FUTURE 
271 
^ Since we have every evidence of vegetation on Mars, there may 
be animal and intelligent life as well. If so, this life must have 
fitted itself for the ever changing climate and topography of the 
planet. For animal life to exist it must preserve the vegetation 
upon which, from all analogy to things earthly, it lives. Over the 
vast plains of Mars comes the water from the melting polar-caps, 
the only portions of the planet’s surface upon which at present the 
waters can condense. This water seems to be drawn from the 
poles along the level surface of the planet to the areas of vegeta¬ 
tion by artificial means. It is here that the far-famed canals of 
Schiaparelli and Lowell come into play and about which much 
has been written elsewhere. 
As the water leaves the poles, it only shows itself to the eye and 
the telescope by the tracts of verdure along its course — and these 
tracts appear as canals. This vegetation, in turn, announces itself 
by its characteristic changes similar to that seen each season in 
the large dark areas. The vegetation along the canals waits upon 
the melting of the polar-caps each spring and the large areas again 
wait upon the water as it progresses downward from the poles 
through the canals. The level surface of Mars enables that to be 
accomplished which would otherwise seemingly be impossible. 
The canals reach up to and into the polar-caps. As the caps 
melt each spring and the snow becomes thin it quickens the vegeta¬ 
tion below it. This in turn melts the snow above the canals and 
rifts appear in the caps. These rifts prove themselves to be the 
canals by remaining in situ as canals, after the caps have receded 
sufficiently to leave them bare. 
The vegetation proves iself vegetation in this case also, since it 
is dependent on moisture for its growth as on Earth, also from 
the fact that in the act of growing it liberates sufficient heat to 
melt the snows above it before the snow on either side is dissipat¬ 
ed by the solar rays. 
The past history of our Earth is gradually unfolding. The 
present is known moderately well. Knowledge of the future re¬ 
mains to be unraveled The revelation may be hastened by the 
study of our sister planet out in space. 
V 
