made at the same instant by different observers, many of whom are
well-known astronomers, I may say that the various plates resemble in
turn the following objects: a skate's egg-case; a circular battery
discharging fire from one side while the smoke drifts away in the
opposite direction; an ascidian, known as Molgula, with an extra
aperture, however; a snowshoe; a radiolarian; a fighting shield of
an Igorrote savage; an egg of a hair worm; a crushed spider, and
other equally dissimilar objects. I have reproduced a few of these
drawings (Plate II), that the reader may realize that my similes are
not exaggerated. The many drawings which have been made of the Nebula
of Orion, by astronomers of distinction, depart quite as widely from
each other as do those of the Solar Corona. In Volume XXV of the "Naval
Observatory Observations" is published a monograph of the central parts
of the Nebula of Orion, by Professor E. S. Holden. He starts with
a drawing made by Huyghens in 1659 and ends with a drawing made by
Professor Langley in 1879. In a summary of the work the author says:
"I am acquainted with but one drawing of the Nebula which is entirely
above criticism, that of the late G. P. Bond. He was a skilled artist,"
etc. An examination of the drawings in this Memoir are equally
distracting. In looking at them casually they suggest respectively a
Japanese stocking pattern; an amoeba; an embryo cuttlefish; a plan of
Boston, and other forms equally divergent. Mr. Fison, in his book above
quoted, writes as follows of other astronomical subjects: "Drawings of
the Milky Way as seen by the naked eye have been recently executed by
two independent observers, Mr. Boeddicker and Mr. Eaton, each drawing
the result of long and arduous observation, but in comparing them it
is the exception rather than the rule to find any approximation in
agreement in respect of the more delicate details." The drawings of
the surface features of Mars by different observers do vary in respect
of the more delicate details, but in every case they represent a map
of some kind and do not remind one of a wheelbarrow, baptismal font,
or other incongruous objects. These divergent drawings of the same
object are not confined to celestial bodies. One has only to examine
works on ancient Mexican and Egyptian monuments, or those of classical
archæology, to see the astounding caricatures and perversions. The
various drawings of the famous Dighton Rock inscription, covering a
period of two hundred years, are striking examples of the vagaries of
an artist. Moreover, the text accompanying the drawings often states
that they were drawn with scrupulous care. The hieroglyphics are
pecked out on the face of a rock in rough lines, half an inch wide and
a third of an inch in depth. These marks are in enduring rock; it is
the observer and his imperfect drawing which is at fault. The Nebula
of Orion, the Milky Way, and, for the time being, the Solar Corona
are permanent objective realities and have all been photographed, yet
behold the drawings! It is unnecessary to state that the ability to
draw varies quite as much with man as the ability to sing. A man may
be an excellent observer and yet utterly unable to use a pencil, and
any attempt on the part of one to draw who has no ability in that
direction results in a fiasco. It is noteworthy that an artist with no
knowledge of astronomy, or the art of telescopic observation, will make
a more accurate drawing than one made by the best astronomer who has no
ability as a draughtsman. Concerning the drawings of Mars, if one will
turn to the "Annals of the Lowell Observatory," Volume I, Plate XIV, he
will there see drawings made on successive nights by Mr. Lowell and his
assistants, Mr. Douglass and Mr. Drew, showing a remarkable agreement.
After finishing my observations of Mars, which covered nearly a
complete presentation of the planet, I made a comparison between my
drawings and those made by Professor Lowell and his secretary, Miss
Leonard, and a few made by the assistant astronomers, Mr. Lampland and
Mr. Slipher, and the agreement was almost absolute, the only difference
being that their drawings portrayed additional features which in
some cases I had caught a glimpse of but could not fix. I found it
exceedingly difficult to draw in the correct positions details within a
circle, and particularly when the axis of that circle was inclined some
degrees from the vertical, indicated by a spider's thread in the ocular.
I think any reasonable man will admit that the divergence seen in the
various drawings of Mars by different observers cannot be held as an
argument against their existence.
IX
THEORIES REGARDING THE CANALS
_In knowledge, that man only is to be condemned and
despised who is not in a state of transition._
FARADAY.
Having shown to the satisfaction of any reasonable mind that the
delicate lines, known as canals, do exist, it will be interesting
to examine some of the theories which have been advanced to explain
these markings, as well as some of the absurd deductions drawn from
their existence. The late Dr. J. Joly, Professor of Geology in the
University of Dublin, in a paper on the Origin of the Canals of Mars
("Trans." Royal Soc., Dublin) came to the conclusion that meteoric
bodies, revolving on or near the surface of Mars, produced these lines.
In brief, he supposed that Mars at various times in the early stages
of his history, when his rotation period was much shorter, attracted
small bodies, which, after whirling about the planet, finally came
down on the crust and caused these lines. He conceived of satellites
twice the diameter of Phobos, or say, seventy-two miles in diameter,
flying about Mars at a distance of sixty-three miles, which would at
this distance, by its attractive force, exert a stress on the supposed
thin crust of Mars of from fifteen to thirty tons per square foot, and
thus rend the surface of the planet in a zone two hundred and twenty
miles wide, thus forming two parallel ridges which might be visible to
us as double canals. This preposterous idea takes no account of the
greater attractive force of the Earth, and that it too should have
had precisely the same experience, more often repeated. No trace of
such behaviors, however, has ever been detected. The Moon, too, should
have caught some of these heavy bodies, but while conspicuous cracks
are seen on her surface, and delicate ridges are seen radiating from
the larger volcanoes, not a trace of these great meteoric furrows
has ever been observed. It takes no account of the chances--one in a
million--that these cavorting meteors should meet at common centres,
and if they did, the impossibility that they should stop abruptly and
then start off in opposite directions. It takes no account of many
of the lines following the arc of a great circle, or what finally
became of three or four hundred of these meteors to tally with the
number of the canals, unless it is supposed that some of them went
whirling around the planet three or four times, changing their courses
instantly and repeatedly. Indeed, the advancement of such absurd ideas
shows the desperate despair of a man who tries to escape the admission
that the lines in question may be artificial--and hence the result of
intelligence working to a definite end--by a conception as crazy as one
might possibly get in a disordered dream. To heighten the absurdity
of this theory, if that were possible, Mr. J. L. E. Dryer, who signs
a notice of this paper, while calling attention to the fact that this
hypothesis takes no account of the correlation of changes in the canals
with seasonal changes on the planet, otherwise soberly says: "It must
be conceded that there is nothing in the new hypothesis contrary to
observed facts."
Mr. J. Orr, in the pages of the "British Astronomical Journal,"
assuming that Schiaparelli believed that the canals were excavated
(despite the fact that Schiaparelli called them _canali_, or
channels), and compared them to the English Channel and the Channel of
Mozambique--for at the outset he had no doubt of their being natural
configurations--proceeds to show the impossibility of an idea that
was never entertained. His attempt is as childish and ridiculous as
the theory he conjures up. Mr. Orr, taking it for granted that the
only explanation offered for these lines is that they are excavated,
concludes that a Martian canal, like Tartarus, "should be seventy
feet in depth (one might ask, why not five hundred or five thousand?)
and that the canals of Mars would contain 1,634,000 of our Suez
Canals, and would require an army of two hundred million men, working
for one thousand of our years, for their construction," and similar
idiocies regarding the population of Mars, which he concludes "must be
409,000,000, thus showing that all the adult males, and a large number
of women, must have been engaged in the great work." In connection
with this absurd travesty, let us pause for a moment to consider the
extraordinary character of the president of this society before which
this paper was read. A man who is the senior assistant of the Royal
Observatory at Greenwich, instead of rebuking this balderdash as
entirely beside the question, stated as the result of an experiment
with a lot of charity-school children, that the canals are merely
illusions of the brain, and this in the face of the testimony of a
number of astronomers, many of whom are highly distinguished, that
the markings do exist. This man seriously commented on the paper by
saying: "He hoped that Mr. Orr's statistical, but nevertheless amusing
and instructive, paper might prove one more nail in the coffin of a
very absurd idea which had certainly got most undue currency, namely,
that the canals of Mars could possibly be the work of human agents."
Equally astounding, too, is it that this nonsense the "Astronomical
Journal of the Pacific" republishes without a word of comment. But what
could we expect of the mentality of the senior assistant of the Royal
Observatory at Greenwich, who, with the great vault of heaven crowded
with enigmas awaiting an answer, should waste a particle of gray matter
in trying to ascertain precisely where Joshua stood when he commanded
the Sun to stand still so that he could have a little more time for
his bloody work. Even the day of the month is ascertained; he finds
that the date of this murderous affair was about July 22, and that the
Sun must have risen exactly at 5 A. M. and set at 7 P. M. The Moon,
he concludes, must have been about its third quarter and was within
half an hour of setting. He could not fix the year, however! Fancy
all this detail without a word of exegetical criticism, or comment
on the precise words of Joshua. "And he said in the sight of Israel,
Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of
Ajalon. And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stayed, until the people
had avenged themselves upon their enemies." Not even a pious query
as to why the Lord did not shower down a few more meteorites, rather
than disarrange the whole solar system. Such an attitude of the mind
renders one incapable of appreciating anything in astronomic research
beyond that which can be measured and photographed. The above is a fair
illustration of the intolerable attitude of many of those who deny the
existence of the canals, or, if admitting them as existent, resort to
every expedient to disprove their artificial character.
Among the interesting suggestions as to the cause of the lines on Mars
is that proposed by Professor W. H. Pickering, who, while admitting
that they represent bands of vegetation, believes that they have their
counterpart on the Moon, and that both are produced by volcanic forces,
the cracking of the surface being the result of internal strain and
stress. The fissures thus produced permit the escape of water vapor
and carbon dioxide, and thus the natural irrigation of these cracks is
effected and growth of vegetation follows. This opinion should have
great weight, as Professor Pickering has made a profound study of lunar
details, and is one of the foremost authorities on the subject. He
has also drawn many of the surface features of Mars, and was at one
time connected with the Lowell Observatory. He it was who suggested
irrigation to account for the great apparent width of the Martian
lines. In the "Annals of the Harvard College Observatory," Vol. LIII,
No. 14, Professor Pickering presents a study of a crater on the Moon's
surface, known as Eratosthenes, accompanied by drawings and photographs
of an area within the crater revealing a few irregular cracks which he
thinks correspond to the well-known canals of Mars; indeed, he calls
these lines canals though he believes them to be cracks. A few spots,
probably craterlets, he compares to the oases of Lowell. That there is
no atmosphere on the Moon is admitted by all. Professor Pickering's
keen eye has, however, detected a change in the appearance of these
cracks which he attributes to vegetation, animated in its growth
by water vapor and carbonic acid gas, as before remarked. In this
supposition he may be right, though it seems difficult to believe that
so deliquescent an organism as a plant could withstand a variation of
temperature from two to three hundred degrees below zero, to one above
that of boiling water. One might naturally ask why the greater cracks
so conspicuous on the Moon's surface, typical examples of which
are found in the Mare Serenitis, Mare Triangulatis, and surroundings,
do not emit aqueous vapor and carbon dioxide, and thus show similar
features of widening and change of shade. Admitting the correctness of
Pickering's views, it seems impossible to see any resemblance between
this diminutive agglomeration of lines within a lunar crater, and the
great geodetic lines sweeping for hundreds of miles across the face of
Mars.
[Illustration: PLATE III
CHINESE BOWL, SHOWING CRACKLE]
In the lunar crater, known as Flammarion's Circle, a most typical
branching crack is seen. An examination of these lunar cracks, of which
I made drawings through the great telescope at the Lowell Observatory,
showed them to be cracks of the most unmistakable character, paralleled
on the Earth's surface, by sunbaked fissures. If volcanic forces have
caused these cracks in the Moon the same kind of energy should have
produced the same general results in Mars, and circular craters should
equally be in evidence, for many of the lunar craters are sufficiently
large to be detected were they on Mars. They would certainly be
indicated on the terminator, and yet not a trace of such markings has
been found. It is rather extraordinary, too, that such earthquake
fissures on any great scale should not have been filled with trap,
silicate, or other injected material. Indeed it is strange that such a
triangulating arrangement of cracks has not been found on the Earth's
surface.
[Illustration: PLATE IV
MUD CRACKS ON SHORE OF ROGER'S LAKE, ARIZONA]
In order to pronounce the lines on Mars as simply cracks one should
study the various kinds of cracks in similar surfaces on the Earth.
In such a study he would be amazed at the similarity of cracks. When
there is a grain in the substance, as in wood, the cracks follow
the grain, though even in this material they are discontinuous. In
amorphous material they have essentially the same character; whether in
the almost microscopic crackle of old Satsuma pottery, or huge cracks
in sun-dried mud, the areas enclosed are generally polygonal. If the
material be of impalpable fineness the edges of the cracks are smooth
and clean-cut, as in Plate III, from a Chinese bowl; whereas if the
material is coarse and pebbly the edges of the cracks are rough and
irregular, as in Plate IV, from the muddy shores of a lake. Cracks
arising from contraction never converge to a common centre, and when
not connected with another crack they taper to a point. They begin at
indefinite places and end in an equally indefinite manner. That there
should be a common resemblance in cracks due to contraction is
evident as they arise from a shrinking of the surface. The most ancient
deposits, millions of ages ago, reveal mud cracks differing in no
respect from those found to-day. We subjoin a few forms of cracks from
various surfaces, to show their essential resemblance. It will be seen
that the cracks in the Moon are identical in character to those found
on the Mesa at Flagstaff. They start from some indefinite point, are
irregular in outline and end as indefinitely. A poor asphalt pavement
offers one of the best opportunities for the study of the formation of
various kinds of cracks and fissures. On the edge of a sloping sidewalk
one may see the cracks due to a sliding, or lateral displacement of the
surface; the effects of subsidence show a number of cracks around the
area of depression; the growth of a tree crowding the asphalt shows
the effect of lateral thrust, and an enlargement of a root below, or
the effects of frost show cracks due to elevation. All these various
cracks reveal the same features: they are discontinuous, they begin and
end without definition. Schiaparelli says in regard to the _canali_ of
Mars: "None of them have yet been seen cut off in the middle of the
continent, remaining without beginning or without end." These lines on
the surface of Mars, as a writer in "Nature" says, are almost without
exception geodetically straight, supernaturally so, and this in spite
of their leading in every possible direction. It is inconceivable that
cracks should be laid out with such geodetic precision. We have seen
that cracks have no definite beginning or termination; we have seen
that the lines of Mars begin and end at definite places. Cracks are
irregular, vary in width and differ entirely from the straight lines
depicted by Schiaparelli, Lowell, and others. But if we admit them
to be natural cracks in the crust we are compelled to admit that the
forces implicated in such cracks must have been active many millions
of years ago, as Mars, being a much older planet than the Earth, must
have long since ceased to show those activities which the Earth,
even to-day, exhibits in such phenomena as earthquakes, subsidences,
elevations, and the like. Now cracks made at that early time in the
history of the planet must have long since become filled with detritus
and obliterated in other ways, and no evidence would show, even on
close inspection, of their former existence, much less at a distance of
50,000,000 of miles, more or less.
[Illustration: PLATE V
1. POTTERY CRACKLE
2 INCHES
2. MUD CRACKS
2 FEET
3. ASPHALT CRACKS
16 INCHES
4. EARTH CRACKS
10 FEET
5. CRATER CRACKS, MOON
55 MILES
6. _a._ MOON _b._ AFRICA
100 MILES 1500 MILES
NATURAL LINES
CRACKS, FISSURES, ETC.]
In Plate V, page 112, are given six figures representing various cracks
and fissures. No. 1 represents the cracks in the glaze of Japanese
pottery, magnified. No. 2 shows the mud cracks on the edge of a lake,
to the extent of two feet. No. 3 is a series of cracks in an asphalt
pavement, covering about two feet. No. 4 shows the form of cracks
in the surface of a mesa in Arizona, the result of the summer heat,
the length being about ten feet. No. 5 is a tracing from a drawing
by Professor W. H. Pickering showing cracks in the lunar crater
Eratosthenes, with an extent of fifty-five miles. The original drawing
represented a much greater widening of the lines which Professor
Pickering believes to be due to vegetation. I endeavored to trace
the centre of each line and Professor Pickering said in regard to my
tracing: "In one or two instances you have assumed that a crack went
through the middle of a broad space, whereas, for aught we know, it
may have gone along either edge, but otherwise the tracing obviously
follows the outlines of my drawing." It evidently gives a _cachet_
of what appears to be veritable cracks on the surface, and it is
interesting to compare this drawing with the cracks in the asphalt. In
No. 6 are two drawings; one marked A represents cracks in a region of
the Moon known as Flammarion's Circle, the other B represents the great
rift in southern Africa, probably the most stupendous phenomenon in
geological history. This rift has been traced from the Valley of the
Jordan through the Dead Sea, into the Gulf of Akaba, thence into the
Red Sea, which it follows the entire length, then turning southwesterly
into Africa and branching, one branch takes in Lake Tanganyika, and
the other branch Lake Nyassa. A portion north of Nyassa is still
problematical. Here is a crack 1,500 miles long, most of it filled with
detritus, water, or forest. It would be an interesting question whether
such a fracture would be visible even from the Moon. A glance at these
various figures will give one a conception of the similarity of cracks,
their irregular contour, their indeterminate origin, and ending. Cracks
arising from shrinkage vary only in the material in which the crack
takes place; the conditions resulting from shrinkage or pulling apart
are precisely the same.
[Illustration: PLATE VI
1. RAILROADS, ILLINOIS
37 MILES
2. STREETS, MONTREAL
1/2 MILE
3. IRRIGATION CANALS, ARIZONA
1-1/3 MILES
4. CANALS, GRONINGEN, HOLLAND
10 MILES
5. MARS, SCHIAPARELLI'S MAP
6. MARS, LOWELL'S GLOBE
ARTIFICIAL LINES
RAILWAYS, STREETS, CANALS, ETC.]
Let us now glance at a series of figures on Plate VI, page 113;
their artificial character may be recognized at once. They are all
designed for channels or thoroughfares for the transportation of men,
merchandise, or water. No. 1 represents a tracing from a railroad map
of a county in Illinois. The convergence of lines to common centres,
and, in one case, parallel lines may be seen. The length of the region
represented is thirty-seven miles. No. 2 is a tracing of streets
in a district of Montreal, covering an extent of half a mile. No. 3 is
a tracing of a small region near Phoenix, Arizona, showing irrigating
canals. The larger ones follow contour lines of the surface; the
smaller ones are usually laid out in rectangular form to correspond
with the original land sections and sub-sections, the boundary lines
of which run north and south, east and west. No. 4 represents the
canals converging on Groningen, Holland. No. 5 is a tracing from a
hemispherical map of Mars made by Schiaparelli, and No 6 is traced
from a photograph of a globe on which Lowell has carefully drawn the
canals, oases, etc., of Mars covering a land extent of 7,400 miles. The
remarkable artificiality of all these figures must be admitted. The
lines on the first four figures are laid out by an intelligence for
similar purposes. No. 1 for the conveyance of passengers and freight;
No. 2 for the traffic of a city; No. 3 for the conveyance of water; No.
4 for purposes of navigation, and Nos. 5 and 6, according to Lowell's
view, for the conveyance of water from melting polar snow caps for
irrigation purposes. A simple, rational explanation, as their great
width and geodetic precision forbid any other.
Let one contemplate these lines of Mars and compare them with the
natural cracks on Plate V and he will appreciate the emphatic words of
Lowell when he says: "The mere aspect is enough to cause all theories
about glaciation, fissures, or surface cracks to die an instant and
natural death." Consider any other possible tracing of lines on the
face of the Earth as the result of Nature's forces, such as river beds,
cañons, chasms, fissures, faults, rifts, precipitous valleys, fiords,
the results of sharp folds in the strata, parallel chains of mountains,
and none of these lines would be straight, none of them would be of
uniform width, and few of them would have the enormous breadth of the
Martian lines, they would begin nowhere and, with the exception of
the rivers, end nowhere. This definition holds good as the result of
natural forces from the microscopic crackle on a dinner plate, to a
crack in the Earth's crust fifteen hundred miles long.
Having briefly alluded to some of the theories advanced to explain the
geodetic network of lines encircling Mars--theories in one case so
puerile, and in another case an interpretation so monstrous, though
endorsed by astronomers of standing--we turn to the suggestion that
these various lines are artificial, that they were designed for a
definite purpose, namely, to conduct water from those regions alone
where water is found for the purposes of irrigation. We shall call
attention to a parallel case where the great ice caps and glaciers of
the Himalaya Mountains supply water, by their melting, for thousands of
miles of irrigating canals. Let us ask ourselves whether if the snows
of the Himalayas gradually failed, the crowded millions of India would
not if necessary reach out to the farthest North for this precious
fluid? Our great centres of population at the present time are reaching
out in every direction for water supply. How long would it take New
York City to decide in case of water famine to tap the Great Lakes to
the north, or to establish pipe lines to the north pole, if it were
necessary to go that distance for water?
From the foregoing it is seen that the question of water supply has
engaged the energies of man from pre-historic times. These great
irrigating works are found, however, in regions of sterility, or light
rainfall, from the rude irrigating canals of ancient Peru and Arizona
to the marvellous accomplishments of the hydraulic engineer in India
and Egypt. This demand for more water is not, however, confined to
regions of sterility, the reaching out of cities for supplies of water
for potable purposes and for the wasteful disposal of sewage was
inevitable. What shall we say, however, of the notes of warning in
regions of rain?