Miss Dodan came more and more frequently to see me. The thought of my
physical depression, the revulsion of hopelessness over my changing
lineaments made the love I bore her more painful and enervating. I tried
hard to conceal my fears over my condition. But Miss Dodan had been
observant. Her developing affections became daily more tender and
delicate, and her solicitude evinced itself in many charming, thoughtful
ways that added only a more poignant sadness to my sufferings.
I was, indeed, tortured by the conflicting aims life seemed to furnish
me. On the one hand was the necessity of continuing, if I could, my
communications with my father; on the other, the duty I owed myself to
abandon all for the woman I truly loved, and to renovate and establish
my health so that I might woo and win, and marry her.
It was, in a sense, an ethical question, but it was quite as hard to
determine by ordinary arguments whether I could have any permission to
violate my promise to my father, as it was to estimate the exact measure
of my obligations to myself and Miss Dodan. An incident occurred that
dissipated this dilemma, sent Miss Dodan to England, and left me at
Christ Church to receive the last message from my father before the
sickness had fully developed that now has laid its searching and
remorseless veto upon any further life or happiness for me in this
world.
Miss Dodan and myself were seated together upon a bench drawn up in the
sunshine at the foot of the Observatory, watching with delight the
distinct changing sea, the plumes of smoke from diminished steamers, and
the white glory of full-rigged ships. It was the autumn of the southern
country, and the dreamy spell of the declining days fell softly upon the
material tissues of nature, as well as on the acquiescent spirit of man.
"Father," said Miss Dodan, uncertainly, while she formed her hand into
an improvised tube, and looked through it on the peaceful scene at our
feet, "has been telling me of my birthplace in Devonshire. It must be
very beautiful, more beautiful than it is here. But there is no sea, and
it seems to me now that I should die without it; it is the very soul and
voice, too, of all this picture!" She spread out her arms, and half
willfully threw back the one nearest me, until it swept over my head,
and I caught and kissed the opened palm.
"Yes," I replied, "the sea relieves everything about or near it, from
the humiliation of commonness. The stamp of distinction rests on its
printless waves. It was the first surface of the earth, and its primal
regency has never been lost or forfeited;" a suspicion crossed my mind:
"How was it your father spoke of Devonshire. I never knew before that
you came from that pearl of the countries of England. Would you like to
see it?"
My voice half sank, and the hitherto unsuspected fact that Mr. Dodan had
observed my physical danger, and now was planning to interrupt his
daughter's intimacy and hallucination for a poor, failing man,
struggling with an impossible problem, and a mortal malady, seemed
suddenly understood by me. I turned to her a face of questioning
concern. Her eyes were still fixed upon the distant, pulsating sea.
"No," she answered, half nonchalantly. "I suppose not, and yet--why not!
I have only known this country; to cross the great ocean, to see the
capital of the world, to learn the great wonders of its palaces and
temples, to see its multitudes, to see the Queen. Ah! to see the Queen!"
Her hands folded tightly together across her brow, she looked the very
embodiment of reverent expectation, and the blushing roses on her
cheeks, the lovelight in her eyes seemed to deepen for an instant, and
then pale slightly, as she turned to me only to see me bury my head in
my hands, holding back the cry of stifled hope that often before had
leaped to my lips, but never had before so nearly passed them.
"Oh, Bradford," she cried, "would you mind so much! I would soon be back
again. And then, you know, this awful telegraphic work would be over,
and we could be happy together without a thought of that cold, far-away
Mars!"
We talked on together till the dusky night had begun to gather its
shadows about us, and Mars, that marvellous spot of light from whose
untouched continents the waves of magnetic oscillation might even then
be starting on their pathless transit across the abyss of space,
destined for my ear, began to shine above us.
It was clear to me now that Mr. Dodan had been carefully nursing in his
daughter a desire to see England and the Queen, and her own little
birthplace, and that he had formed a resolution to separate us, for his
daughter's best interests, as he thought.
I suffered from a very proud, sensitive nature, perhaps unwholesomely
intensified by the lonely life I had led, and a peculiar sense of my
difference from other people.
This revelation, so unwelcome, so fraught with painful anticipations,
roused my pride to a sharp climax of revolt, disdain and defiance. Miss
Dodan should go,--I should urge it. I would applaud and hasten it, there
would be no weakness, no supplication, no obstacles on my part. Let
death write his inerrant claim to me, let it be recognized; Mr. Dodan
need not be disturbed as to my absolute self-control.
The very acerbity of my coming misery, through Miss Dodan's absence,
fully realized by me, seemed now only to add a desperation of assumed
indifference and gayety to all my actions. I argued against delay, and
dwelt with excellent effect upon the charms of the visit. I assumed that
Miss Dodan needed the change, that the educational value of such an
experience would be incalculable.
Mr. Dodan was frankly surprised and pleased. This unexpected support and
enthusiastic commendation of his plan was something he gratefully
accepted, and he assumed a new manner toward me. He ascribed to me a
power of self-renunciation which won his ardent approval and admiration.
The day was at last fixed. Miss Dodan, young, appreciative, and
curious, was elated at the prospect of the voyage, and, momentarily, at
least, forgot her first reluctance to desert me. The preparations were
all completed. I need not dwell upon all the detail of that last week.
It was a cruel ordeal for me, but no one would have suspected my real
anguish. I seemed the most thoughtful of all, the most naturally buoyant
and hopeful for the success of the trip. I forgot nothing. The telegraph
station was not, however, neglected. I watched at night, and during the
hours of my absence my assistant was persistently present in the tower.
At last the steamer sailed away from the wharf at Port Littelton. The
last moments I passed alone with Miss Dodan were sacred, sweet memories;
all that I have now.
Mr. and Mrs. Dodan and Miss Dodan were waving their handkerchiefs from
the deck as I turned sorrowfully back to Christ Church. I realized that
I had seen Miss Dodan for the last time, and that when she returned to
New Zealand, she would only find me gone. There was but one duty now. To
resume, if possible, the communications with my father, and prepare the
story of my experience and discoveries, and leave it to the world.
I went back to the Observatory. I was again alone. A reaction of
despondency overwhelmed me, and it was coincident with a hemorrhage,
which left me weak and nervous. I resumed my watching at the station. I
seemed to anticipate a new message. I endured peculiar and excruciating
excitement, a tense suspense of desire and prevision that deprived me of
appetite and sleep, and accelerated the ravages of the disease, that
now, victorious over my weakened, nervous force, began the last stages
of its devastating advance.
It was a clear, cold night of exquisite severity and beauty--May 20,
1894, that the third message came from my father. It was announced, as
had been all the others, by the sudden response of the Morse receiver. A
few nights before, grasping at a vague hope that I might again reach him
with the magnetic waves at my command, I had launched into space the
single sentence: "Await me! Death is very near." The message that now
startled my ears began with an exact answer to that trans-abysmal
despatch:
"My son, the thought of your death fills me with happiness. Surely you
will come to this wonderful and unspeakable world, you will see me
again, and I you, but under such new circumstances! My heart yearns for
you immeasurably. Come! Come quickly! To press you to my heart, to speak
with you, to teach you the new things, and Oh! more than all, to bring
you to your mother. For, Tony, she is found; my search is ended. I have
discovered her whom the cruel mystery of Death on earth so sharply
removed from us, in youth and radiance. I have not yet revealed myself.
The joy of anticipation surpasses thought or words. I have hastened back
from seeing her, whom to leave in this paradise imparts the one pang I
have known in this new life, hastened again to the Hill of Observation
that now looks on the cruel ruin, the emptiness of desolation, where
once was the City of Scandor. Let me tell you all:
"When I sent you my last message I was at the Tower of Observation. As
the last wave was emitted from the transmitter, the hand of
Superintendent Alca, whom I met at the mines, was laid upon my shoulder.
I looked up in surprise. He answered my questioning glance: 'I did not
return with Chapman. There was no need of it. A barge going to the City
of Light took the body. I explained everything in a letter to the
Council. I was distressed over the news I had received of the approach
of the cometary mass, which I have detected myself, and I hurried after
you in my own kil-chow (the name of the little porcelain steamers),
anxious to see this terrible thing. Let us go out and watch the wonder.
Whatever happens we shall remain together. I am from Scandor myself,
and though I might have been safer at the mines, I could not stay there
in the crisis.'
"We descended to the ground and walked out over the hillside. The
encircling range of high country about Scandor is, perhaps, one thousand
feet high. Its crest is a low swell, that beyond the city falls away in
broken, irregular slopes to the country of the Ribi on one side, and to
far outstretched plains on almost every other side. This dome was
covered with the people of Scandor, fleeing from the doomed city. The
long lines of moving figures were issuing from the city through its
numerous boulevards, and crowding the spaces on the hilltops. The
astronomers knew exactly now the nature of the approaching mass, its
orbit, spacial extent and weight. Their proclamation had been prepared
and pasted all over the city, announcing its certain destruction, but
that the area of devastation would only embrace the city, that the
cometary visitor was a narrow train or procession of meteors of stone
and iron, that the force of impact would be considerable, enough to
crush to the ground the glassy splendor of the beautiful city, and that
beyond its limits there would be almost no falls.
"Beautiful, indeed, was Scandor in the morning light. It lay before us
shining with a hundred hues. How can I tell you of its exquisite
perfection! Its arrangement expressed a color scheme simple and
effective. The amphitheatre rose in the center, an opalescent yellow;
the boulevards spaced with trees, stretched out in radiating lines from
it, defined by the blue lines of ornamental metal pillars which held the
lamps; from point to point, piercing the air from the shady peaks or
squares shot up also the needles of metal holding the curious electric
globes, while at regular intervals blue domes like gigantic azure
bubbles interrupted the streets of square and colonnaded houses, that
began around the amphitheatre, with pale saffron tones, and grew in
intensity until the edges of the huge populous ellipse were laid like a
deep orange rim upon the green country side. The light falling upon this
reflected, refracted and dispersed, seemed to convert it into a liquid
and faintly throbbing lake of color, cut up into segments by the dark
lanes or streets of trees.
"And this was to be crushed and crumbled to the ground. The houses and
all the constructions are built of glass bricks laid in courses, as with
you on the earth, a soluble glass forming the cement that holds them in
contact and together. The huge glass factories making this formed a
black circle in one part of the City.
"It was now day, and the meteoric nebula was invisible. All day the
people came crowding to the hills. At last, as we gazed in bewildered
admiration at the strange multitudes about us, the sound of distant
music, the organ-like swell of a titanic chorus approaching was heard.
Far away down the boulevard, on whose apex we stood, we saw a marching
retinue of men and women surrounding a platform borne on the shoulders
of men. The platform held the upright figures of the Council amongst
whom, distinguished by a blue chalcal tunic bound about him by yellow
cords, was the noble being I had seen in the Council chamber on the
night of my arrival in Scandor.
"How marvellous it all seemed. The sense of unreality, of dreamland
again overpowered me, a wild horror like some mad possession seized me.
I shook convulsively, and covered my face in my hands, stricken through
and through with a nameless repining misery of doubt, of apprehension,
of dismay. It was the last struggle of readjustment between my memories
of earth, my identity as a man on the earth, and this new life I had
entered. Alca caught me affectionately and placed the acrid bean I had
tasted in the City of Light in my mouth. The black suffocation passed,
and as I slowly returned to realization and serenity I opened my eyes
upon the city, now dead and silent, but blazing with all its lights,
awaiting desolation, dressed in its sumptuous glory like some princely
captive on whom the doom of immolation, before an unappeasable deity,
had suddenly fallen. It was night fall.
"Suddenly a flash, a short piercing note, a loud report, and the sky
above us seemed crowded with glowing missiles. The impact from the first
arrivals of the cometary body upon the outer envelopes of the Martian
atmosphere had begun. A loud shout of attention, surprise and half
extemporized terror rose from the multitudes about us. It was a
breathless moment. The oncoming shoals shot forward in rapid jets of
fire now clouded together in igneous masses, now separated in disjointed
streaks and radiant clusters of snapping, shining bolts.
"As yet the material rushing in upon us failed, in most instances, to
reach the ground in solid forms. It was burned up in the air. The
spectacle was surpassingly strange. The air before us was weaved with
crossing shafts, threads, and traces of phosphorescent light. Behind
this veil still shone with responsive beauty the great city, while
rising occasionally in bursts of color, we could see the alarm rockets
from the opposite hills penetrate the entering flood of light with
frivolous and extinguished protests.
"About half an hour after the glory reached us, and as on all sides the
country shone in spectral illumination, a great mass, decrepitating with
minute explosions along its oncoming side, plunged down upon the noble
amphitheatre of glass. A dreadful sound of crashing stone followed, and
then, rapidly fired from the aerial batteries, came still more of the
dark, half ignited bodies, bathed in hurrying streams of evanescent
blades, and splinters of light.
"And now the destructive bombardment had really begun. The celestial
downpour increased, the valley below us sent upward the detonations of
exploding meteorites and the harsh reverberating crash and overthrow of
glass fabrics. The lights of the city were brokenly extinguished and the
pitiless hail of ruin continued with increasing fierceness.
"It was an awful, glorious scene. The vault of the sky emptying itself
in an avalanche of flame, while from within the wide stream of
projectiles, collisions caused by some accident of deflection originated
interior spots of sudden blazing light. The irregular and separated
shocks of sound from the falling city now ran together in a continuous
roar of dislocated and broken walls, towers, parapets and citadels.
Coruscations sprang out from the yet heated masses, accumulating on the
ground, as they became incessantly struck by new accessions. The ground
trembled with ceaseless fulminations and impingement, the atmosphere
seemed saturated with sulphurous odors, and the panoramic flow of
fluctuating splendor shed a day-like brightness upon the upturned faces
of the startled and stupefied multitude.
"All night long the invasion continued. The area of destruction, exactly
as the astronomers had defined it, was confined to the long elliptical
basin in which Scandor lay. Beyond it hardly a branch upon the trees was
broken, though occasional erratic bombs shot over us and fell miles away
along the borders of the canals.
"As the morning dawned, the shower discontinued, a few laggards fell in
scattering confusion over the prostrate city, and the sun climbing the
eastern sky sent its peaceful reassuring light upon a cairn-like heap of
desolation. The chilled surface of the fallen meteorites were broken up
by areas of glowing cinder-like surfaces. The glittering and opaline
city of glass, the City of Scandor, capital of the Martian world, was
buried beneath the scorching and stony fragments of a minor comet, or
some diminished and wandering meteor train which suddenly issuing from
the unknown depths of space had descended with mathematical precision
upon the treasure city of the planet.
"The Martian legions remained on the hilltops, sombered and silent. The
awful reality, impregnable and drear, before them had changed their
spirit, and they looked into each other's faces with bewilderment.
"I had stayed with Alca throughout the night, and I now turning to him
said:
"'Let us go! What can we do here? Let us walk away for awhile. I am
dizzy with terror.'
"'Yes,' he answered, and tears seemed filling his eyes, 'we will go. We
will walk out into the hill and river country beyond the canal. Many are
wandering over the country now. The farmers will harbor us and the
beauty of the lanes will bring us cheerfulness.'
"And so we went away, hastening with the Martian velocity of motion
until as the sun hung in the zenith, we had reached a hillside sloping
upon a meadow space through which passed the clear but sluggish waters
of a wide stream. A tulip-like grass was distributed in the heavy
luxuriant growth of the meadow, which bore upon pendant threads a blue
bell-like flower. A gentle wind, rising and falling, swept over them,
lifting and blowing out the cups as it passed off to the surface of the
water and printed it with plashes of ripples. A piece of wood pushed out
from the hillside, the trees that formed it struggling out into the
meadow in a broken succession of individuals like a line of men. Here,
leaning against the last tree trunk that stood quite alone in advance of
its companions, was a young woman, her arms folded above the cap--like
the Grecian cassos--that imperfectly held her hair, and dressed in a
yellow tunic and the half seen leggings of meshed chalcal thread--a
lovely picture of meditation.
"I caught Alca's arm in a sudden wave of desire and excitement. It was
the impulse of love, the first burning of its sacred fire I had known in
Mars, and it was the intense certainty of recognition that made it so
impetuous. My Son, your Mother was before me!
"The same glorious beauty I had known on earth covered her, and like a
mystic light shone from her face and person. I was myself again, young,
and she was the same. The impelling sense of a superhuman Destiny
bringing us together again in this new world, forced from me an
ejaculation of thankfulness. The cry was not loud, but audible to her
ears, and she turned toward us. Yes! it was Martha, as I knew her in
those raptured days of love on the banks of the Hudson before disease
and weakness and age had stolen the bloom from her cheeks, the light
from her eyes, and the fair presentiment of charm and perfection from
her body. She did not see me perhaps clearly. Certainly she did not
recognize me. An instant's scrutiny and her face turned again to the
open exposure of hill and field, stream and cloud-flecked sky.
"Alca had observed my gestures of delight, and, perhaps reading my
thoughts by that intuition of mind so wonderful in the Martians, pushed
me toward her gently and moved away from us toward the brink of the
river.
"I stood for a moment hesitating, overwhelmed with the marvel of this
new thing. I stole on, and finally pushing aside the high grown grass,
was at her side--at the side of the very form and feature of the woman
who had taught me on earth the worth of living and the meaning and the
glory of rectitude.
"She was breathing fast, her bosom rising and falling with quick
respirations, and her cheeks flushed with color, made a delicious foil
to the pearly tone of her face, concealed on her neck and forehead by
the escaping tresses of her dark hair.
"I drew back, trembling with anticipation, my heart beating, and my
clasped hands folded on my breast in an agony of restraint. She was
talking, talking to herself in the low musical voice of the Martians.
The wind had ceased, a dark shadow from a crossing cloud moved toward us
from the river over the blue sprinkled field, a haze stole upward from
the farther view, and, bending at the margin of the water the figure of
Alca bathed in light, seemed to watch us like some calm incarnate
response to my own hopes and prayers.
"'How beautiful, how wonderful it is!' her arms dropped from her head,
the body bent forward to the earth, she knelt; 'but must it always be as
it is! Shall not the companion of my days come to this dear place? The
light of sun and moon and stars seems as it always seemed on Earth, but
there does not come to me the divine touch of affection, that intimate
feeling of oneness and self-surrender that was mine with Randolph on the
Earth. A strength unknown to me before, a power of enjoyment, a motion
that is ecstacy, thought, feeling, language, all strong, radiant,
supreme, but yet loneliness! Memory of the things of Earth hardly
remains, except where love prints its firm expression. Randolph, my
husband, and Bradford, my boy, to me are deathless. Why can it not be
that they should be here also? Can the purposes of divine love be
fulfilled by this separation? Shall all the powers of this new life,
this beautiful and sinless Nature be wasted for the want of love which
holds both Nature and the soul in place, in harmony, in adoration of the
One enduring Thought?
"'How the long years have rolled by since I have left the Earth, and
how, amid all the pleasurable things of this serene and hopeful life,
the hidden loneliness has denied it the last completing touch of joy!
Only as I still dare to believe, that the flight of years must end his
aging days on Earth, and that the eternal destiny of married souls is an
eternal union, and that his reincarnation here shall bring us into a new
and better, richer, deeper harmony of mind and tastes and thoughts; only
as the belief grows stronger with passing time, can I, so surrounded
with peace and happiness, in this countryside of quiet work and gentle
cares, bear longer this awful isolation, the nights of prayerful hope,
the days of still enduring hope.
"'How beautiful it is to live, to watch the changing seasons in this
strange new world untouched by sickness or death or sin. And yet,' she
convulsively clasped her face, 'what beauty, what peace, what
sinlessness can replace the only life--the Life of Love?
"'And then my boy! Can it be possible that I may see him! Why, now he
will seem only a brother in this new youth in which I have been born,
and yet--and yet--the mother feeling is unchanged; the old yearning,
just as when I left him a boy upon the Earth seems as great as ever.
"'Oh! when shall this waiting all end in our reunion--father, mother,
son--and all strong and glad in youth and hope?'
"She rose and stretched out her arms toward some phantasy of thought or
fancy in the air above her, and then a song of recall from a distance
floated along the meadow and the river's banks, a sweet, joyous,
beckoning melody, that compelled the ear to listen, and the feet to
follow.
"Martha half turned--I was dazed with wonder--I did not wish to speak. I
could not then have revealed myself. It was all too marvellous, too hard
to comprehend. The old doubts of my reality, of the realness of
everything I had seen, surged up again, and swept over me in a tide of
disillusion.
"Was I dreaming; in the death from Earth had I passed into a wild
phantasmagoria of mental pictures, some endless dream where the lulled
soul encountered again, as visions, all it may have hoped for, all its
unconscious cerebration had limned on the interior canvases of the mind,
to be reviewed, as in a sleep, where every detail met the test of
curiosity--except that last test--waking? Should I awake?
"I sprang forward and beat myself, in a sort of fury of doubt against
the trees about me. The resistance was secure and certain. Pain--it
seemed a kind of bliss, as the guarantee of my flesh and blood
existence--came to me and in my paroxysms the torn skin of my body bled.
I looked at the red stains with exultation. I felt the aches of physical
concussion, with a real rapture.
"This life was real, was dual--body and mind--as on Earth, and the woman
hastening before me along the marge of the rippling stream--I listened
in a kind of feverish anticipation of its silence, for the low cadence
of water passing over pebbles--was Martha! It must be true! What agency
of superhuman cruelty could thus deceive me? No! my eyes were faithful,
and the air, thrilling with the distant song, brought nearer to my ears
the answering call of my wife!
"She was far distant. I ran from tree to tree in the wooded back ground
and traced her to a little hamlet where a group of Martians awaited her.
They turned up a narrow lane singing, and I lost them.
"I returned to Alca, pensively standing on the hill we had first
descended, and said nothing of the strange revelation. I contrived to
learn from him the name of the little village, and the nature of its
inhabitants. He called it Nitansi, and said it had been one of the old
spots where migrating souls from other worlds once entered Mars.
"'A few,' he added, 'come there now, though rarely, and the people
cultivate flowers in great farms, and formerly sent them to Scandor. I
think I saw them moving now along the fields at the riverside. We must
go back. I shall go down the canal to Sinsi. I know the Council of
Scandor will resolve to rebuild the city.'"
The message closed. I rose and staggered backward into the arms of
Jobson. A severe hemorrhage ensued, and slowly thereafter the darkening
doors of life began to close upon me. Disease had won its way against
all the force of life.
It has been my task during these last weeks of life to write this
account of these wonderful experiences, and to leave them to the world
as an assurance--to how many will it give a new delight in living, to
how many will it remove the bitterness of living, to how many may it
bring resignation and hope--that the blight of Death is only an incident
in a continuous renewal of Life.
(End of Mr. Dodd's MS.)
Note by Mr. August Bixby Dodan.
Mr. Dodd died January 20, 1895. He never recovered from the severe shock
caused by hemorrhage, after receiving the second message from his father
and recorded above. He appreciated the imminence of death acutely, and
struggled to complete, as he has, the narrative of his life. My daughter
was not again seen by Mr. Dodd, though he received several letters from
her, which were found beneath his pillow after his demise.
I was with Mr. Dodd constantly during the latter days of his illness,
and then promised him that I should secure the publication of his
remarkable story.
I am not willing to hazard any conjecture as to the more extraordinary
features of this narrative. I can very positively, however, affirm my
complete confidence in Mr. Dodd's honesty. I knew both his father and
himself very well, and through a long intimacy found them both
consistently conforming to a very high type of character, courage, and
intellectual integrity.
The MS. of Mr. Dodd was handed to me by himself, and I recall with a
pathetic interest his smile of appreciative gratitude as I received it,
and gave him my earnest assurance that it should be printed, and that
the world would be made acquainted with his experiments and their
results.
Mr. Dodd was the residuary legatee of his father, and his own will made
during his last sickness, appointed me as his executor. My daughter was
made his sole heir, with two exceptions; small amounts in favor of his
assistants--Jeb Jobson and Andrew Clarke were mentioned in his will--and
these sums have been paid by myself to each.
A series of extraordinary misfortunes, for which I am myself measurably
to blame, resulted in the complete disappearance of the fortune
inherited by my daughter. Her own death and that of my wife, following
upon this disaster, though in no way connected with it, obliterated--and
here again I admit a very grievous culpability--the remembrance of the
MS. of Mr. Dodd and my own promises as to its publication.
I found the MS. of Mr. Dodd carefully wrapped up at the bottom of a
trunk of papers, and confess that I opened the package it formed with a
bitter sense of self-reproach. Mr. Dodd had expected to publish this
paper in New York, and had requested that it should be forwarded to that
city. I have at last complied with his wishes, and the MS. leaves my
hands, absolutely unchanged, consigned through the kind intervention of
a friend, to a publishing house in that western metropolis. I am unable
to add anything more to this statement, which, in itself, I fear conveys
considerable censure to the undersigned.
August Bixby Dodan.
* * * * *
Note by the Editor.
The MS. alluded to by Mr. Dodan in the preceding paragraphs was safely
brought to New York in 1900, and after a very careful examination,
repeatedly rejected by the prominent publishers to whom it was
submitted.
Through a peculiar accident connected with some negotiations pertaining
to a scientific work, contemplated by the writer, the MS. came into his
hands, and he has been encouraged to publish it, influenced by the
favorable comments of friends upon its intrinsic interest. He also has
added to the work as an appendix, which cannot fail to attract the
attention of many, the views of the great astronomer Schiaparelli upon
the present physical condition of Mars, being the reproduction of an
article by that distinguished observer translated from _Nature et Arte_
for February, 1893, by Prof. William H. Pickering and published in the
Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution
for 1894, published here by permission of "Astronomy and Astro-Physics,"
in which journal it first appeared in Vol. XIII., numbers 8 and 9, for
October and November, 1894. In this report also appeared Schiaparelli's
Map of Mars in 1888, which the Editor has not reproduced in this
connection.
The introduction to-day of the wireless telegraphy, assuming a daily
increasing importance, furnishes some reasonable hope that the
marvellous statements given in Mr. Dodd's narrative may be more widely
verified in the future, and point the way to a realization of the daring
and thrilling conception of interplanetary communication.
THE PLANET MARS.
BY GIOVANNI SCHIAPARELLI.
THE PLANET MARS.
BY GIOVANNI SCHIAPARELLI.
Many of the first astronomers who studied Mars with the telescope had
noted on the outline of its disk two brilliant white spots of rounded
form and of variable size. In process of time it was observed that while
the ordinary spots upon Mars were displaced rapidly in consequence of
its daily rotation, changing in a few hours both their position and
their perspective, the two white spots remained sensibly motionless at
their posts. It was concluded rightly from this that they must occupy
the poles of rotation of the planet, or at least must be found very near
to them. Consequently they were given the name of polar caps or spots.
And not without reason is it conjectured that these represent upon Mars
that immense mass of snow and ice which still to-day prevents navigators
from reaching the poles of the earth. We are led to this conclusion not
only by the analogy of aspect and of place, but also by another
important observation....
As things stand, it is manifest that if the above-mentioned white polar
spots of Mars represent snow and ice they should continue to decrease in
size with the approach of summer in those places and increase during the
winter. Now this very fact is observed in the most evident manner. In
the second half of the year 1892 the southern polar cap was in full
view; during that interval, and especially in the months of July and
August, its rapid diminution from week to week was very evident even to
those observing with common telescopes. This snow (for we may well call
it so), which in the beginning reached as far as latitude 70 degrees and
formed a cap of over 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) in diameter,
progressively diminished, so that two or three months later little more
of it remained than an area of perhaps 300 kilometers (180 miles) at the
most, and still less was seen in the last days of 1892. In these months
the southern hemisphere of Mars had its summer, the summer solstice
occurring upon October 13. Correspondingly the mass of snow surrounding
the northern pole should have increased; but this fact was not
observable, since that pole was situated in the hemisphere of Mars
which was opposite to that facing the earth. The melting of the northern
snow was seen in its turn in the years 1882, 1884 and 1886.
These observations of the alternate increase and decrease of the polar
snows are easily made even with telescopes of moderate power, but they
become much more interesting and instructive when we can follow
assiduously the changes in their more minute particulars, using larger
instruments. The snowy regions are then seen to be successively notched
at their edges; black holes and huge fissures are formed in their
interiors; great isolated pieces many miles in extent stand out from the
principal mass and, dissolving, disappear a little later. In short, the
same divisions and movements of these icy fields present themselves to
us at a glance that occur during the summer of our own arctic regions,
according to the descriptions of explorers.
The southern snow, however, presents this peculiarity: The center of its
irregularly rounded figure does not coincide exactly with the pole, but
is situated at another point, which is nearly always the same, and is
distant from the pole about 300 kilometers (180 miles) in the direction
of the Mare Erythraeum. From this we conclude that when the area of the
snow is reduced to its smallest extent the south pole of Mars is
uncovered, and therefore, perhaps, the problem of reaching it upon this
planet is easier than upon the earth. The southern snow is in the midst
of a huge dark spot, which with its branches occupies nearly one-third
of the whole surface of Mars, and is supposed to represent its principal
ocean. Hence the analogy with our arctic and antarctic snows may be said
to be complete, and especially so with the antarctic one.
The mass of the northern snow cap of Mars is, on the other hand,
centered almost exactly upon its pole. It is located in a region of
yellow color, which we are accustomed to consider as representing the
continent of the planet. From this arises a singular phenomenon which
has no analogy upon the earth. At the melting of the snows accumulated
at that pole during the long night of ten months and more the liquid
mass produced in that operation is diffused around the circumference of
the snowy region, converting a large zone of surrounding land into a
temporary sea and filling all the lower regions. This produces a
gigantic inundation, which has led some observers to suppose the
existence of another ocean in those parts, but which does not really
exist in that place, at least as a permanent sea. We see then (the last
opportunity was in 1884) the white spot of the snow surrounded by a
dark zone, which follows its perimeter in its progressive diminution,
upon a circumference ever more and more narrow. The outer part of this
zone branches out into dark lines, which occupy all the surrounding
region, and seem to be distributary canals by which the liquid mass may
return to its natural position. This produces in these regions very
extensive lakes, such as that designated upon the map by the name of
Lacus Hyperboreus; the neighboring interior sea called Mare Acidalium
becomes more black and more conspicuous. And it is to be remembered as a
very probable thing that the flowing of this melted snow is the cause
which determines principally the hydrographic state of the planet and
the variations that are periodically observed in its aspect. Something
similar would be seen upon the earth if one of our poles came to be
located suddenly in the center of Asia or of Africa. As things stand at
present, we may find a miniature image of these conditions in the
flooding that is observed in our streams at the melting of the Alpine
snows.
Travellers in the arctic regions have frequent occasion to observe how
the state of the polar ice at the beginning of the summer, and even at
the beginning of July, is always very unfavorable to their progress.
The best season for exploration is in the month of August, and September
is the month in which the trouble from ice is the least. Thus in
September our Alps are usually more practicable than at any other
season. And the reason for it is clear--the melting of the snow requires
time; a high temperature is not sufficient; it is necessary that it
should continue, and its effect will be so much the greater, as it is
the more prolonged. Thus, if we could slow down the course of our season
so that each month should last sixty days instead of thirty, in the
summer, in such a lengthened condition, the melting of the ice would
progress much further, and perhaps it would not be an exaggeration to
say that the polar cap at the end of the warm season would be entirely
destroyed. But one cannot doubt, in such a case, that the fixed portion
of such a cap would be reduced to a much smaller size, than we see it
to-day. Now, this is exactly what happens to Mars. The long year, nearly
double our own, permits the ice to accumulate during the polar night of
ten or twelve months, so as to descend in the form of a continuous layer
as far as parallel 70 degrees, or even farther. But in the day which
follows, of twelve or ten months, the sun has time to melt all, or
nearly all, of the snow of recent formation, reducing it to such a
small area that it seems to us no more than a very white point. And
perhaps this snow is entirely destroyed; but of this there is at present
no satisfactory observation.
Other white spots of a transitory character and of a less regular
arrangement are formed in the southern hemisphere upon the islands near
the pole, and also in the opposite hemisphere whitish regions appear at
times surrounding the north pole and reaching to 50 degrees and 55
degrees of latitude. They are, perhaps, transitory snows, similar to
those which are observed in our latitudes. But also in the torrid zone
of Mars are seen some very small white spots more or less persistent;
among others one was seen by me in three consecutive oppositions
(1877-1882) at the point indicated upon our chart by longitude 268
degrees and latitude 16 degrees north. Perhaps we may be permitted to
imagine in this place the existence of a mountain capable of supporting
extensive ice fields. The existence of such a mountain has also been
suggested by some recent observers upon other grounds.
As has been stated, the polar snows of Mars prove in an incontrovertible
manner that this planet, like the earth, is surrounded by an atmosphere
capable of transporting vapor, from one place to another. These snows
are, in fact, precipitations of vapor, condensed by the cold, and
carried with it successively. How carried with it if not by atmospheric
movement? The existence of an atmosphere charged with vapor has been
confirmed also by spectroscopic observations, principally those of
Vogel, according to which this atmosphere must be of a composition
differing little from our own, and above all, very rich in aqueous
vapor. This is a fact of the highest importance because from it we can
rightly affirm with much probability that to water and to no other
liquid is due the seas of Mars and its polar snows. When this conclusion
is assured beyond all doubt another one may be derived from it of not
less importance--that the temperature of the Arean climate
notwithstanding the greater distance of that planet from the sun, is of
the same order as the temperature of the terrestrial one. Because, if it
were true, as has been supposed by some investigators, that the
temperature of Mars was on the average very low (from 50 degrees to 60
degrees below zero), it would not be possible for water vapor to be an
important element in the atmosphere of that planet nor could Water be an
important factor in its physical changes, but would give place to
carbonic acid, or to some other liquid whose freezing point was much
lower.
The elements of the meteorology of Mars seem, then, to have a close
analogy to those of the earth. But there are not lacking, as might be
expected, causes of dissimilarity. From circumstances of the smallest
moment nature brings forth an infinite variety in its operations. Of the
greatest influence must be different arrangement of the seas and the
continents upon Mars and upon the earth, regarding which a glance at the
map will say more than would be possible in many words. We have already
emphasized the fact of the extraordinary periodical flood, which at
every revolution of Mars inundates the northern polar region at the
melting of the snow. Let us now add that this inundation is spread out
to a great distance by means of a network of canals, perhaps
constituting the principal mechanism (if not the only one) by which
water (and with it organic life) may be diffused over the arid surface
of the planet. Because on Mars it rains very rarely, or perhaps even it
does not rain at all. And this is the proof.
Let us carry ourselves in imagination into celestial space, to a point
so distant from the earth that we may embrace it all at a single glance.
He would be greatly in error who had expected to see reproduced there
upon a great scale the image of our continents with their gulfs and
islands and with the seas that surround them which are seen upon our
artificial globes. Then without doubt the known forms or parts of them
would be seen to appear under a vaporous veil, but a great part (perhaps
one-half) of the surface would be rendered invisible by the immense
fields of cloud, continually varying in density, in form, and in extent.
Such a hindrance, most frequent and continuous in the polar regions,
would still impede nearly half the time the view of the temperate zones,
distributing itself in capricious and ever varying configurations. The
seas of the torrid zone would be seen to be arranged in long parallel
layers, corresponding to the zone of the equatorial and tropical calms.
For an observer placed upon the moon the study of our geography would
not be so simple an undertaking as one might at first imagine.
There is nothing of this sort in Mars. In every climate and under every
zone its atmosphere is nearly perpetually clear and sufficiently
transparent to permit one to recognize at any moment whatever the
contours of the seas and continents, and, more than that, even the minor
configurations. Not indeed that vapors of a certain degree of opacity
are lacking, but they offer very little impediment to the study of the
topography of the planet. Here and there we see appear from time to time
a few whitish spots, changing their position and their form, rarely
extending over a very wide area. They frequent by preference a few
regions, such as the islands of the Mare Australe, and on the continents
the regions designated on the map with the names of Elysium and Tempe.
Their brilliancy generally diminishes and disappears at the meridian
hour of the place, and is re-enforced in the morning and evening with
very marked variations. It is possible that they may be layers of clouds
because the upper portions of terrestrial clouds where they are
illuminated by the sun appear white. But various observations lead us to
think that we are dealing rather with a thin veil of fog instead of a
true nimbus cloud, carrying storms and rain. Indeed, it may be merely a
temporary condensation of vapor under the form of dew or hoar frost.
Accordingly, as far as we may be permitted to argue from the observed
facts, the climate of Mars must resemble that of a clear day upon a high
mountain. By day a very strong solar radiation, hardly mitigated at all
by mist or vapor; by night a copious radiation from the soil toward
celestial space, and because of that a very marked refrigeration. Hence
a climate of extremes, and great changes of temperature from day to
night, and from one season to another. And as on the earth at altitudes
of 5,000 and 6,000 meters (17,000 to 20,000 feet) the vapor of the
atmosphere is condensed only into the solid form, producing those
whitish masses of suspended crystals which we call cirrus clouds, so in
the atmosphere of Mars it would be rarely possible (or would even be
impossible) to find collections of cloud capable of producing rain of
any consequence. The variation of the temperature from one season to
another would be notably increased by their long duration, and thus we
can understand the great freezing and melting of the snow which is
renewed in turn at the poles at each complete revolution of the planet
around the sun.
As our chart demonstrates, in its general topography Mars does not
present any analogy with the earth. A third of its surface is occupied
by the great Mare Australe, which is strewn with many islands, and the
continents are cut up by gulfs, and ramifications of various forms. To
the general water system belongs an entire series of small internal
seas, of which the Hadriacum and the Tyrrhenum communicate with it by
wide mouths, whilst the Cimmerium, the Sirenum, and the Solis Lacus are
connected with it only by means of narrow canals. We shall notice in
the first four a parallel arrangement, which certainly is not
accidental, as also not without reason is the corresponding position of
the peninsulas of Ausonia, Hesperia, and Atlantis. The color of the seas
of Mars is generally brown, mixed with gray, but not always of equal
intensity in all places, nor is it the same in the same place at all
times. From an absolute black it may descend to a light-gray or to an
ash color. Such a diversity of colors may have its origin in various
causes, and is not without analogy also upon the earth, where it is
noted that the seas of the warm zone are usually much darker than those
nearer the pole. The water of the Baltic, for example, has a light,
muddy color that is not observed in the Mediterranean. And thus in the
seas of Mars we see the color become darker when the sun approaches
their zenith, and summer begins to rule in that region.
All of the remainder of the planet, as far as the north pole is occupied
by the mass of the continents, in which, save in a few areas of
relatively small extent, an orange color predominates, which sometimes
reaches a dark red tint, and in others descends to yellow and white. The
variety in this coloring is in part of meteorological origin, in part it
may depend on the diverse nature of the soil, but upon its real cause
it is not as yet possible to frame any very well grounded hypothesis.
Nevertheless, the cause of this predominance of the red and yellow tints
upon the surface of ancient Pyrois is well known.[A] Some have thought
to attribute this coloring to the atmosphere of Mars, through which the
surface of the planet might be seen colored, as any terrestrial object
becomes red when seen through red glass. But many facts are opposed to
this idea, among others that the polar snows appear always of the purest
white, although the rays of light derived from them traverse twice the
atmosphere of Mars under great obliquity. We must then conclude that the
Arean continents appear red and yellow because they are so in fact.
Besides these dark and light regions, which we have described as seas
and continents, and of whose nature there is at present scarcely left
any room for doubt, some others exist, truly of small extent, of an
amphibious nature, which sometimes appear yellowish like the continents,
and are sometimes clothed in brown (even black in certain cases), and
assume the appearance of seas, whilst in other cases their color is
intermediate in tint, and leaves us in doubt to which class of regions
they may belong. Thus all the islands scattered through the Mare
Australe and the Mare Erythræum belong to this category; so, too, the
long peninsula called Deucalionis Regio and Pyrrhae Regio, and in the
vicinity of the Mare Acidalium the regions designated by the names of
Baltia and Nerigos. The most natural idea, and the one to which we
should be led by analogy, is to suppose these regions to represent huge
swamps, in which the variation in depth of the water produces the
diversity of colors. Yellow would predominate in those parts where the
depth of the liquid layer was reduced to little or nothing, and brown,
more or less dark, in those places where the water was sufficiently deep
to absorb more light and to render the bottom more or less invisible.
That the water of the sea, or any other deep and transparent water, seen
from above, appears more dark the greater the depth of the liquid
stratum, and that the land in comparison with it appears bright under
the solar illumination, is known and confirmed by certain physical
reasons. The traveler in the Alps often has occasion to convince himself
of it, seeing from the summits the deep lakes with which the region is
strewn extending under his feet as black as ink, whilst in contrast with
them even the blackest rocks illumined by the sunlight appeared
brilliant.[B]
Not without reason, then, have we hitherto attributed to the dark spots
of Mars the part of seas, and that of continents to the reddish areas
which occupy nearly two-thirds of all the planet, and we shall find
later other reasons which confirm this method of reasoning. The
continents form in the northern hemisphere a nearly continuous mass, the
only important exception being the great lake called the Mare Acidalium,
of which the extent may vary according to the time, and which is
connected in some way with the inundations which we have said were
produced by the melting of the snow surrounding the north pole. To the
system of the Mare Acidalium undoubtedly belong the temporary lake
called Lacus Hyperboreus and the Lacus Niliacus. This last is ordinarily
separated from the Mare Acidalium by means of an isthmus or regular dam,
of which the continuity was only seen to be broken once for a short time
in 1888. Other smaller dark spots are found here and there in the
continental area which we may designate as lakes, but they are certainly
not permanent lakes like ours, but are variable in appearance and size
according to the seasons, to the point of wholly disappearing under
certain circumstances. Ismenius Lacus, Lunae Lacus, Trivium Charontis,
and Propontis are the most conspicuous and durable ones. There are also
smaller ones, such as Lacus Moeris and Fons Juventae, which at their
maximum size do not exceed 100 to 150 kilometers (60 to 90 miles) in
diameter, and are among the most difficult objects upon the planet.
All the vast extent of the continents is furrowed upon every side by a
network of numerous lines or fine stripes of a more or less pronounced
dark color, whose aspect is very variable. These traverse the planet for
long distances in regular lines that do not at all resemble the winding
courses of our streams. Some of the shorter ones do not reach 500
kilometers (300 miles), others, on the other hand, extend for many
thousands, occupying a quarter or sometimes even a third of a
circumference of the planet. Some of these are very easy to see,
especially that one which is near the extreme left-hand limit of our map
and is designated by the name of Nilosyrtis. Others in turn are
extremely difficult, and resemble the finest thread of spider's web
drawn across the disk. They are subject also to great variations in
their breadth, which may reach 200 or even 300 kilometers (120 to 180
miles) for the Nilosyrtis, whilst some are scarcely 30 kilometers (18
miles) broad.
These lines or stripes are the famous canals of Mars, of which so much
has been said. As far as we have been able to observe them hitherto,
they are certainly fixed configurations upon the planet. The Nilosyrtis
has been seen in that place for nearly one hundred years, and some of
the others for at least thirty years. Their length and arrangement are
constant, or vary only between very narrow limits. Each of them always
begins and ends between the same regions. But their appearance and their
degree of visibility vary greatly, for all of them, from one opposition
to another, and even from one week to another, and these variations do
not take place simultaneously and according to the same laws for all,
but in most cases happen apparently capriciously, or at least according
to laws not sufficiently simple for us to be able to unravel. Often one
or more become indistinct, or even wholly invisible, whilst others in
their vicinity increase to the point of becoming conspicuous even in
telescopes of moderate power. The first of our maps shows all those that
have been seen in a long series of observations. This does not at all
correspond to the appearance of Mars at any given period, because
generally only a few are visible at once.[C]
Every canal (for now we shall so call them) opens at its ends either
into a sea, or into a lake, or into another canal, or else into the
intersection of several other canals. None of them have yet been seen
cut off in the middle of the continent, remaining without beginning or
without end. This fact is of the highest importance. The canals may
intersect among themselves at all possible angles, but by preference
they converge toward the small spots to which we have given the name of
lakes. For example, seven are seen to converge in Lacus Phoenicis,
eight in Trivium Charontis, six in Lunae Lacus, and six in Ismenius
Lacus.
The normal appearance of a canal is that of a nearly uniform stripe,
black, or at least of a dark color, similar to that of the seas, in
which the regularity of its general course does not exclude small
variations in its breadth and small sinuosities in its two sides. Often
it happens that such a dark line opening out upon the sea is enlarged
into the form of a trumpet, forming a huge bay, similar to the estuaries
of certain terrestrial streams. The Margaritifer Sinus, the Aonius
Sinus, the Aurorae Sinus, and the two horns of the Sabæus Sinus are thus
formed, at the mouths of one or more canals, opening into the Mare
Erythraeum or into the Mare Australe. The largest example of such a gulf
is the Syrtis Major, formed by the vast mouth of the Nilosyrtis, so
called. This gulf is not less than 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) in
breadth, and attains nearly the same depth in a longitudinal direction.
Its surface is little less than that of the Bay of Bengal. In this case
we see clearly the dark surface of the sea continued without apparent
interruption into that canal. Inasmuch as the surfaces called seas are
truly a liquid expanse, we cannot doubt that the canals are a simple
prolongation of them, crossing the yellow areas or continents.
Of the remainder, that the lines called canals are truly great furrows
or depressions in the surface of the planet, destined for the passage of
the liquid mass and constituting for it a true hydrographic system, is
demonstrated by the phenomena which are observed during the melting of
the northern snows. We have already remarked that at the time of melting
they appear surrounded by a dark zone, forming a species of temporary
sea. At that time the canals of the surrounding region become blacker
and wider, increasing to the point of converting at a certain time all
of the yellow region comprised between the edge of the snow and the
parallel of 60 degrees north latitude into numerous islands of small
extent. Such a state of things does not cease until the snow, reduced to
its minimum area, ceases to melt. Then the breadth of the canals
diminishes, the temporary sea disappears, and the yellow region again
returns to its former area. The different phases of these vast phenomena
are renewed at each return of the seasons, and we were able to observe
them in all their particulars very easily during the oppositions of
1882, 1884, and 1886, when the planet presented its northern pole to
terrestrial spectators. The most natural and the most simple
interpretation is that to which we have referred, of a great inundation
produced by the melting of the snows; it is entirely logical and is
sustained by evident analogy with terrestrial phenomena. We conclude,
therefore, that the canals are such in fact and not only in name. The
network formed by these was probably determined in its origin in the
geological state of the planet, and has come to be slowly elaborated in
the course of centuries. It is not necessary to suppose them the work of
intelligent beings, and, notwithstanding the almost geometrical
appearance of all of their system, we are now inclined to believe them
to be produced by the evolution of the planet, just as on the earth we
have the English Channel and the channel of Mozambique.
It would be a problem not less curious than complicated and difficult to
study the system of this immense stream of water, upon which perhaps
depends principally the organic life upon the planet, if organic life is
found there. The variations of their appearance demonstrated that this
system is not constant. When they become displaced or their outlines
become doubtful and ill defined, it is fair to suppose that the water is
getting low or is even entirely dried up. Then, in place of the canals
there remains either nothing or at most stripes of yellowish color
differing little from the surrounding background. Sometimes they take on
a nebulous appearance, for which at present it is not possible to assign
a reason. At other times true enlargements are produced, expanding to
100, 200 or more kilometers (60 to 120 miles) in breadth, and this
sometimes happens for canals very far from the north pole, according to
laws which are unknown. This occurred in Hydaspes in 1864, in Simois in
1879, in Ackeron in 1884, and in Triton in 1888. The diligent and minute
study of the transformations of each canal may lead later to a knowledge
of the causes of these effects.
But the most surprising phenomenon pertaining to the canals of Mars is
their germination, which seems to occur principally in the months which
precede and in those which follow the great northern inundation--at
about the times of the equinoxes. In consequence of a rapid process,
which certainly lasts at most a few days, or even perhaps, only a few
hours, and of which it has not yet been possible to determine the
particulars with certainty, a given canal changes its appearance and is
found transformed through all its length into two lines or uniform
stripes more or less parallel to one another, and which run straight and
equal with the exact geometrical precision of the two rails of a
railroad. But this exact course is the only point of resemblance with
the rails, because in dimensions there is no comparison possible, as it
is easy to imagine. These two lines follow very nearly the direction of
the original canal and end in the place where it ended. One of these is
often superposed as exactly as possible upon the former line, the other
being drawn anew; but in this case the original line loses all the small
irregularities and curvature that it may have originally possessed. But
it also happens that both the lines may occupy opposite sides of the'
former canal and be located upon entirely new ground. The distance
between the two lines differs in different germinations and varies from
600 kilometers (360 miles) and more down to the smallest limit at which
two lines may appear separated in large visual telescopes--less than at
intervals of 50 kilometers (30 miles). The breadth of the stripes
themselves may range from the limit of visibility, which we may suppose
to be 30 kilometers (18 miles), up to more than 100 kilometers (60
miles). The color of the two lines varies from black to a light red,
which can hardly be distinguished from the general yellow background of
the continental surface. The space between is for the most part yellow,
but in many cases appears whitish. The gemination is not necessarily
confined only to the canals, but tends to be produced also in the
lakes. Often one of these is seen transformed into two short, broad,
dark lines parallel to one another and traversed by a yellow line. In
these cases the gemination is naturally short and does not exceed the
limits of the original lake.
The gemination is not shown by all at the same time, but when the season
is at hand it begins to be produced here and there, in an isolated,
irregular manner, or at least without any easily recognizable order. In
many canals (such as the Nilosyrtis, for example), the gemination is
lacking entirely, or is scarcely visible. After having lasted for some
months, the markings fade out gradually and disappear until another
season equally favorable for their formation. Thus it happens that in
certain other seasons (especially near the southern solstice of the
planet) few are seen, or even none at all. In different oppositions the
gemination of the same canal may present different appearances as to
width, intensity, and arrangement of the two stripes; also in some cases
the direction of the lines may vary, although by the smallest quantity,
but still deviating by a small amount from the canal with which they are
directly associated. From this important fact it is immediately
understood that the gemination cannot be a fixed formation upon the
surface of Mars and of a geographical character like the canals. The
second of our maps will give an approximate idea of the appearance which
these singular formations present. It contains all the geminations
observed since 1882 up to the present time. In examining it it is
necessary to bear in mind that not all of these appearances were
simultaneous, and consequently that the map does not represent the
condition of Mars at any given period; it is only a sort of
topographical register of the observations made of this phenomenon at
different times.[D]
The observation of the gemination is one of the greatest difficulty, and
can only be made by an eye well practiced in such work, added to a
telescope of accurate construction and of great power. This explains why
it is that it was not seen before 1882. In the ten years that have
transpired since that time, it has been seen and described at eight or
ten observatories. Nevertheless, some still deny that these phenomena
are real, and tax with illusion (or even imposture) those who declare
that they have observed it.
Their singular aspect, and their being drawn with absolute geometrical
precision, as if they were the work of rule or compass, has led some to
see in them the work of intelligent beings, inhabitants of the planet. I
am very careful not to combat this supposition, which includes nothing
impossible. (Io mi guarderò bene dal combattere questa supposizione, la
quale nulla include d'impossibile.) But it will be noticed that in any
case the gemination cannot be a work of permanent character, it being
certain that in a given instance it may change its appearance and
dimensions from one season to another. If we should assume such a work,
a certain variability would not be excluded from it; for example,
extensive agricultural labor and irrigation upon a large scale. Let us
add, further, that the intervention of intelligent beings might explain
the geometrical appearance of the gemination, but it is not at all
necessary for such a purpose. The geometry of nature is manifested in
many other facts from which are excluded the idea of any artificial
labor whatever. The perfect spheroids of the heavenly bodies and the
ring of Saturn were not constructed in a turning lathe, and not with
compasses has Iris described within the clouds her beautiful and regular
arch. And what shall we say of the infinite variety of those exquisite
and regular polyhedrons in which the world of crystals is so rich? In
the organic world, also, is not that geometry most wonderful which
presides over the distribution of the foliage upon certain plants, which
orders the nearly symmetrical, star-like figures of the flowers of the
field, as well as of the sea, and which produces in the shell such an
exquisite conical spiral that excels the most beautiful masterpieces of
Gothic architecture? In all these objects the geometrical form is the
simple and necessary consequence of the principles and laws which govern
the physical and physiological world. That these principles and these
laws are but an indication of a higher intelligent Power we may admit,
but this has nothing to do with the present argument.
Having regard, then, for the principle that in the explanation of
natural phenomena it is universally agreed to begin with the simplest
suppositions, the first hypotheses of the nature and cause of the
geminations have for the most part put in operation only the laws of
inorganic nature. Thus, the gemination is supposed to be due either to
the effects of light in the atmosphere of Mars, or to optical illusions
produced by vapors in various manners, or to glacial phenomena of a
perpetual winter, to which it is known all the planets will be
condemned, or to double cracks in its surface, or to single cracks of
which the images are doubled by the effect of smoke issuing in long
lines and blown laterally by the wind. The examination of these
ingenious suppositions leads us to conclude that none of them seem to
correspond entirely with the observed facts, either in whole or in part.
Some of these hypotheses would not have been proposed had their authors
been able to examine the geminations with their own eyes. Since some of
these may ask me directly, "Can you suggest anything better?" I must
reply candidly, "No."
It would be far more easy if we were willing to introduce the forces
pertaining to organic nature. Here the field of plausible supposition is
immense, being capable of making an infinite number of combinations
capable of satisfying the appearances even with the smallest and
simplest means. Changes of vegetation over a vast area, and the
production of animals, also very small, but in enormous multitudes, may
well be rendered visible at such a distance. An observer placed in the
moon would be able to see such an appearance at the times in which
agricultural operations are carried out upon one vast plain--the
seed-time and the gathering of the harvest. In such a manner also would
the flowers of the plants of the great steppes of Europe and Asia be
rendered visible at the distance of Mars--by a variety of coloring. A
similar system of operations produced in that planet may thus certainly
be rendered visible to us. But how difficult for the Lunarians and the
Areans to be able to imagine the true causes of such changes of
appearance without having first at least some superficial knowledge of
terrestrial nature! So also for us, who know so little of the physical
state of Mars, and nothing of its organic world, the great liberty of
possible supposition renders arbitrary all explanations of this sort and
constitutes the gravest obstacle to the acquisition of well-founded
notions. All that we may hope is that with time the uncertainty of the
problem will gradually diminish, demonstrating if not what the
geminations are, at least what they cannot be. We may also confide a
little in what Galileo called "the courtesy of nature," thanks to which
a ray of light from an unexpected source will sometimes illuminate an
investigation at first believed inaccessible to our speculations, and of
which we have a beautiful example in celestial chemistry. Let us
therefore hope and study.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote A: Pyrois I take to be some terrestrial region, although I
have not been able to find any translation of the name.--Translator.]
[Footnote B: This observation of the dark color which deep water
exhibits when seen from above is found already noted by the first author
of antique memory, for in the Iliad (verses 770-771 of Book V) it is
described how "the sentinel from the high sentry box extends his glance
over the wine-colored sea, [Greek: _oinopa phonton_]." In the version of
Monti the adjective indicating the color is lost.]
[Footnote C: In a footnote the author refers to a drawing of Mars made
by himself, September 15, 1892, and says, ... "At the top of the disk
the Mare Erythraeum and the Mare Australe appear divided by a great
curved peninsula, shaped like a sickle, producing an unusual appearance
in the area called Deucalionis Regio, which was prolonged that year so
as to reach the islands of Noachis and Argyre. This region forms with
them a continuous whole, but with faint traces of separation occurring
here and there in a length of nearly 6,000 kilometers (4,000 miles). Its
color, much less brilliant than that of the continents, was a mixture of
their yellow with the brownish gray of the neighboring seas." The
interesting feature of this note is the remark that it was an unusual
appearance, the region referred to being that in which the central
branch of the fork of the Y appeared. Since no such branch was
conspicuously visible this year, it would therefore seem from the above
that it was the opposition of 1892 that was peculiar, and not the
present one.--Translator.]
[Footnote D: This map may be found also in La Planète Mars, by
Flammarion, page 44.--Translator.]