with the highest intelligence, both vertebrate and invertebrate, manage
to survive in considerable numbers in regions devoid of water. One
conveys it to his habitations from lower levels, the other digs wells
or manages to utilize the moisture from the roots of trees.
XIV
MY OWN WORK
_Snow caps of solid carbonic acid gas, a planet cracked in
a positively monomaniacal manner meteors ploughing tracks
across its surface with such mathematical precision that
they must have been educated to the performance, and so
forth and so on, in hypotheses each more astounding than
its predecessor, commend themselves to man, if only by such
means he may escape the admission of anything approaching
his kind._
PERCIVAL LOWELL.
I am led to present these few brief memoranda of my own work in order
to meet questions which would naturally be asked as to whether I had
ever seen Mars through a telescope, and if so did I make out any
markings or canals.
[Illustration: PLATE VII
DOME OF THE LOWELL OBSERVATORY, FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA]
It was my good fortune to have the privilege of observing Mars every
night at the Lowell Observatory (see Plate VII) for thirty-four days,
covering an almost complete presentation of the planet. A few nights
were cloudy and no observations were made. With these exceptions I
was in the observer's chair several times each evening. The twenty-four
inch refractor of which I had the use was the last telescope Clark
ever made, and he pronounced it his best one. This instrument (Plate
VIII) is mounted on a mesa near the town of Flagstaff, Arizona, at
a height of over 7,000 feet above sea-level, in an atmosphere of
remarkable clarity and steadiness. I have already stated on page 80
my first experiences in observing and will only present the brief
notes I made at the time of observation. Better results would have
accompanied these efforts had I followed the custom of Michael Faraday
and asked what was I to look at, what was I expected to see? I had been
somewhat prejudiced as to the existence of the canals by the comments
of sporadic observers, many of whom, by the way, had never been able to
see them, and denying that any one else ever had, straightway proceeded
to suggest a theory to explain their presence! Careful to avoid any
bias in the matter I rigidly refused to allow either Professor Lowell
or his assistants to suggest where I might find a canal or a marking on
the disk. The night before I left the Observatory for home I asked Mr.
Lowell for the first time, to indicate the position of some conspicuous
canal which I had not seen. This he did and examining the region
which I supposed he had indicated on the disk I searched in vain for
the line. In doing so another line was detected and drawn, and on
confessing my failure to see the line he had described, showed him my
drawing, when he exclaimed, "Why, you have got it," and sure enough
when he showed me his drawing and repeated the directions he had given
me, I found that I had been looking at the wrong pole of the planet.
[Illustration: PLATE VIII
TWENTY-FOUR INCH TELESCOPE OF THE LOWELL OBSERVATORY, FLAGSTAFF,
ARIZONA]
In one stage of great discouragement I came across a statement made
by Mr. A. Stanley Williams which has already been quoted, namely,
that he had to observe continually for two months before sufficient
sensitiveness enabled him to make out the more delicate markings. That
I might have seen more had I been acclimated, and had been accustomed
to telescopic observation there is no doubt. The record is poor enough
and yet under the conditions mentioned the results may be of interest
to the reader.
May 14. Midnight. Saw planet for the first time. A beautiful
luminous disk with shades of tone dimly visible. Southern
pole cap white and seen.
May 15. Certain details sufficiently distinct to make out dark
areas, and at times a line or two.
May 16. Occasional flashes of a few lines, while broad darkened
area and cuniform area on right visible, and, in one flash,
a line supporting the wedge as well as basal line. With no
better seeing conditions than last night, more details came
out, and for the first time I am encouraged to believe that
each day an improvement will take place. I saw enough to
make my first drawing.
May 17. Bad seeing. I made out only the broad southern band,
the line at the northern pole and the wedge-shaped area to
the right below, also a slight discoloration in the middle.
May 18. Not very good seeing. Could make out but little more
than I did last night.
May 19. Seeing about the same, perhaps slightly less. Saw rift
in southern dark band and north pole appeared luminous.
May 20. Mr. Lowell informed me this morning that the luminous
appearance around the north pole that I saw last night
was the result of a snowstorm. Seeing fair. Considerable
vibration of planet. Saw new snow field of the northern
pole distinctly outlined and much confused markings. Looked
in vain for spots but could not discern them.
May 21. Seeing clearer, and for the first time I made out
distinctly two spots, or oases. Mr. Lowell informed me that
Schiaparelli had never seen them. The snow which fell on
May 19 was still conspicuous.
May 22. With a headache and a seedy condition from not being
acclimated, I yet found an improvement in my seeing
capacities. I made out a promontory in the southern dark
belt, also a canal running down from the Trivium.
May 23. Bad seeing. Could not define snow cap though dark
southern band showed. Made no drawing.
May 24. Am in despair of seeing anything when the others see so
much. I must have an old and worn-out retina. In looking,
lines flash out at times but it is impossible to locate
them. I can certainly see more than Huyghens did, but not
much more.
May 25. Heavens very cloudy and Mars obscured.
May 26. Poor seeing--saw but a few markings.
May 27. Snow and hail storm in the afternoon. Temperature 35°
at night. Seeing zero, and consequently no observation.
May 30. To-night markings and more particularly shades seemed
abundant yet so evanescent that only an intimate knowledge
by long study could define them. I gave up in despair.
May 31. Saw a little more than I saw last night but did not see
a trace of things that Mr. Lowell and his assistants
apparently saw without effort. I realize that it requires
a special training to observe the flickering evanescent
markings on Mars.
June 1. Though the best night yet for steady atmosphere I saw
but little more and have come to the conclusion that it
will take months of continuous observation before I can see
anything.
June 2. I went to the Observatory to-night in despair of ever
seeing anything more. Got into the observing chair and
immediately saw a number of markings I had not seen before,
as my drawings show. I have purposely refrained from
studying the maps, and so do not know the names of the
lines detected.
June 3. Atmosphere so unsteady that it was impossible to make
anything out of Mars, so after struggling awhile gave it up
in disgust.
June 4. Seeing about 4, yet manage to see a few planetary
details.
June 5. I find a slow advance in my ability to see the markings
though it is exasperating that the janitor of the
Observatory talks about plainly seeing certain details
which he indicates to me by a sketch, and looking at the
region I can see no trace of a canal or anything else.
June 7. Seeing very good and in my observations tonight added
another canal. It is a most difficult matter to catch the
fleeting lines as they appear with startling distinctness
to instantly vanish again.
June 9. Seeing fairly good. Could make out but little more.
Color of regions very strong and vivid.
June 10. Seeing a little better than last night. Added three new
canals, and these canals flashed out three or four times
before I was willing to record them, and then I did not
believe them till Mr. Lowell showed me a drawing he had
made just before, and the two drawings corresponded.
June 11. Looked at eight o'clock and the markings of larger
features came out strong and dark and yet the seeing was
not estimated high.
June 12. Rather poor seeing though some of the dark regions came
out with remarkable distinctness. Every day I notice a very
slight improvement in detecting lines. Markings formerly
made out with great difficulty are now instantly recognized.
June 13. In my observations to-night added one new canal and
completed another, and was able to detect one that Mr.
Lowell had not seen during the evening--a well-known one he
says. It simply shows that one must continually observe as
the lines flash out for a single instant.
June 14. Made out still another canal to-night. The markings
show very clear, in fact some parts were vivid in
distinctness and the lower part of Syrtis Major dark blue.
June 15. Poor seeing, yet I was able to see a few of the
prominent features and defined the wedge-shaped region
below.
On Plate IX I give a few of my drawings of Mars in which are indicated
the lines I saw many times and was able to fix. Other lines flashed out
for an instant but these were not recorded, simply because I could not
definitely locate them.
[Illustration: PLATE IX
MAY 19
MAY 22 Snow fell May 19
JUNE 5
JUNE 9-10
JUNE 13
JUNE 11-13
DRAWINGS OF CANALS OF MARS BY THE AUTHOR]
The expression "poor seeing" in the above notes must be taken in
a comparative sense with relation to the usual conditions of the
atmosphere of Flagstaff. Poor seeing, therefore, at Flagstaff would
be equal, if not superior, to the best seeing at much lower levels.
An astronomer who resigned his position in a western observatory for
duties at Mount Wilson, California, told me that for thirty consecutive
nights the seeing was superior to the best nights he had observed in at
his former post.
XV
WHAT THE MARTIANS MIGHT SAY OF US
_O wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us!_
ROBERT BURNS.
For every single perplexity of interpretation we encounter in our study
of the surface markings of Mars, the Martian would encounter a dozen
perplexities in interpreting the various features on the surface of the
Earth.
Admitting the conclusions of Lowell of the existence of intelligence in
Mars, and that that intelligence has been associated for ages with a
planet having only slight elevations of land, a tenuous atmosphere, a
scarcity of water which has been utilized for ages through artificial
channels, as we have done in various parts of the world since
prehistoric times, having vast tracts of sterile plains, and, within
these sterile tracts large oases fed by irrigating canals, regions of
sparse vegetation, and no large bodies of water; with these conditions
going beyond the history of these intelligences, what must be the
Martian interpretation of the surface features of this world? It is
a perfectly fair inquiry, for by such means we may appreciate the
attitude of some of our interpreters of Mars.
In examining the Earth, then, as we have examined Mars, the Martian
would find large yellow and reddish areas, extensive greenish areas,
and, besides, large regions of varying shades of blue, possibly,
occupying three-fourths of the Earth's surface. The yellow areas he
would interpret as desert land, the greenish areas he might consider
vegetation, but what would he make out of the larger regions of blue?
This would certainly puzzle him, because, unfamiliar with oceans, he
could not believe that such vast tracts could really be water. He would
easily interpret the polar snow caps, and the waters at their edges,
but the oceans would be impossible to solve. The suggestion, by some
audacious interpreter, that this vast blue area was water, would be
answered by showing that these so-called bodies of water bordered vast
tracts of sandy deserts with no canals running into them for irrigation
or navigation purposes. Even the polar snow caps would be doubted,
because they seemed to extend far down into temperate latitudes; and on
their recedence in summer, there would be seen no dark, bordering seas
as the result of their melting. The vegetation, instead of unfolding
at the north and gradually extending southward, would unfold in a
contrary direction, appearing first in south temperate latitudes and
developing northward. The perennial character of the vegetation in the
tropics would puzzle him. Even if he recognized oases in the deserts
of America and Africa, the results of Artesian wells or springs,
he could not believe them to be vegetation; for he would detect no
irrigating canals running into them. He would come to the conclusion
that no creature could possibly exist on the Earth, as the tremendous
force of gravitation with great atmospheric pressure would forbid
the existence of any organic forms. The immense clouds veiling the
surface must at times suffer condensation, and the impact of raindrops
would, from their velocity and weight, smash everything in the way of
life. Life, if it existed in forms supported by appendages, must have
legs of iron to sustain its weight, and a crust like a turtle to be
impervious to raindrops, and this would be contrary to all Martian
analogy. The courses of rivers, if detected, would puzzle him from
their irregularity, unless he dared to suggest that these long sinuous
channels extending for thousands of miles were identical to the little
rivulets he had studied near his own poles.
In fact, about the only feature outside the polar snow caps that
he would instantly recognize, would be the great ice cap of the
Himalayas. India, that vast region extending from latitude 35° nearly
to the equator, with its great plains and sterile regions, with its
overpowering heat, and a dense population, depends for the sustenance
of many of its millions upon the thousands of miles of irrigating
canals, fed from the melting snow caps of the Himalayas. India has no
great lakes, but in the northern plains great rivers course their way
to the sea. The Ganges and the Indus and their tributaries derive their
waters from the melting glaciers, and from these, a most extensive
irrigating system of canals and reservoirs draw their waters. As
the heat increases the ice melts more rapidly, and so more water is
supplied at just the time when it is most needed. The whole scheme is
on so vast a scale that a Martian would recognize its meaning, though
he would wonder at the tortuous outlines of the larger canals.
Flammarion has, in a similar manner, presented the arguments of Martian
astronomers as to whether life exists anywhere but upon the planet
Mars. He says, among other fancies, that the sapient Martian argues
that houses could not be built on the Earth, on account of the violence
with which building materials, such as bricks, blocks, etc., would
drop, and thus endanger life. Believing that Mars is rightly balanced
as to temperature, the Earth being so much nearer the Sun, would be too
hot for life to exist. The Martian conceives himself to be supremely
complete "even to the point that artists wishing to represent God in
our sanctuaries have figured Him in the image of a Martian man." The
Martian considers our year too short. In his reflections he says:
"During the period in which one of us attains the middle age of fifty
years those on Earth have become decrepit old men of ninety-four, if,
indeed, they are not already dead."
Seriously, if there is an intelligence in Mars, it must have evolved
along the same general lines as intelligence has developed on the
Earth. Being an older planet, it must have outgrown many of the
vagaries and illusions which still hamper man in his progress here.
In the dim past, however, we can imagine some Martian astronomer with
the enigma of our Earth before him, and the great vault of heaven with
its thousands of riddles unanswered, consulting records and covering
pages with mathematical formulæ to ascertain the precise spot upon
which grew the bean stalk by which a Martian Jack ascended to encounter
the giant. Indeed, the imagination can conjure up an infinite number of
parallels. If Mars is an older sphere, we trust it has long outgrown
the superstitions which still hamper man in his interpretation of the
inexorable phenomena of Nature on this little planet. We may hope
that they have finally reached that stage when a dictum similar to
that of Huxley forms an engraved tablet in their temples of worship.
These are his words: "Science is teaching the world that the ultimate
court of appeal is observation and experiment, and not authority. She
is teaching it to estimate the value of evidence; she is creating a
firm and living faith in the existence of immutable moral and physical
laws, perfect obedience to which is the highest possible aim of an
intelligent being."
XVI
SCHIAPARELLI, LOWELL, PERROTIN, THOLLON
_Every age has its problem, by solving which humanity is
helped forward._
HEINRICH HEINE.
In previous pages allusion has been made to the distinguished character
of the astronomers who have contributed to a knowledge of the surface
markings of Mars. Testimony from astronomical sources has been quoted
as to their keen-sightedness in this work which, as Sir Robert Ball
has said, "indicates one of the utmost refinements of astronomical
observation." That the reader may better understand the eminence
of some of those whose names will forever be associated with the
investigation of the surface features of Mars the following brief
records are given.
[Illustration: GIOVANNI VIRGINIO SCHIAPARELLI]
The two astronomers most widely known in connection with the study of
Mars are Professor Giovanni Schiaparelli and Professor Percival
Lowell. Lowell had just graduated from Harvard, at the age of
twenty-one, when Schiaparelli, at the age of forty-two, made his
first great discovery of the _canali_ of Mars. Macpherson, in his
valuable history of the "Astronomers of To-day," says of Schiaparelli:
"His studies of meteoric astronomy, of Mars, Venus, and Mercury, of
double stars and of stellar distribution, have given him a place
second to none among living students of the heavens." From the same
interesting book we gather the following facts: Schiaparelli was born
in Sabigliano, in Piedmont, in 1835. He attended the usual schools in
his native town and then entered the University of Turin as a student
of mathematics and architecture. Before he was twenty years old he
decided to devote himself to the study of astronomy. At the age of
twenty-four he was an assistant in the celebrated Observatory of
Pulkova. When the kingdom of Italy was organized he became an assistant
in the Brera Observatory, Milan. He became suddenly famous at the age
of twenty-seven by the discovery of a new asteroid. In 1862 he became
Director of the Observatory. Schiaparelli's first great discovery was
the relationship between comets and meteoric showers. In 1872 he was
accorded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society for his
various astronomical discoveries. Professor Simon Newcomb gives him
high praise when he says: "Among the individual observers Schiaparelli
may be assigned the first place in view of his long continued study of
the planets under a fine Italian sky, the conscientious minuteness of
his examinations, and his eminence as an investigator." Schiaparelli's
researches into the relation of comets and meteors "were developed
in 1873, in his remarkable work 'Le Stelle Cardenti,' which is,
according to Sir Norman Lockyer, one of the greatest contributions to
astronomical literature which the nineteenth century has produced."
Macpherson closes his interesting memoir of Schiaparelli by saying:
"His devotion to astronomy, his singularly accurate observations and
his wonderful discoveries have secured for him an exalted position
among the greatest astronomers of modern times." For a further
appreciation of the work of Schiaparelli the reader is referred to
Macpherson's "Astronomers of To-day." In this brief sketch the reader
may judge of the eminent character of one who insists that the lines
in Mars are a persistent feature of its surface, whatever one's
interpretation of them may be.
[Illustration: PERCIVAL LOWELL]
Percival Lowell was born in Boston in 1855. He was graduated from
Harvard in 1876, and prepared for his graduating thesis an essay on
the Nebular Hypothesis. Lowell is a many-sided man. Early interested
in mathematics, he became one of the founders of the Mathematical and
Physical Society of Boston. A visit to Japan, where he lived a number
of years, resulted in the writing of three interesting books: "The Soul
of the Far East," 1886; "Noto," 1891; and "Occult Japan," 1894. During
his residence in Japan he was chosen foreign Secretary and adviser to
the Korean Special Commission, then about to visit the United States,
which he accompanied. On his return to Korea he was the guest of the
Korean Government, and this experience prompted him to write "A Korean
Coup d' État," 1894, and his well-known volume, "Choson, the Land of
the Morning Calm," 1885. On his return to America he undertook an
eclipse expedition to Tripoli with Professor Todd. His early interest
in astronomical subjects was now fully awakened, and the red planet,
which he had observed in boyhood with a small telescope from the roof
of his father's house, aroused his interest on account of the heated
discussions over Schiaparelli's discoveries. With an impetuosity and
enthusiasm which characterizes all his work, he set about to secure a
proper region and a sufficient elevation for an observatory site. This
was found in northern Arizona at an elevation of over 7,000 feet. Here,
then, was established the Lowell Observatory with a twenty-four inch
refractor made by Clark especially for this Observatory, the last, and,
according to the maker's words, the best telescope he had ever made.
Lowell insisted that the location of an observatory was a much more
important factor than the size of the instrument, and says: "When this
is recognized, as it eventually will be, it will become the fashion to
put up observatories where they may see rather than be seen." It may be
said with truth that, for the first time in the history of astronomy,
an observatory has been erected and fitted for the special purpose of
studying the surface features of Mars. During unfavorable oppositions
Lowell has turned his attention to the other planets, notably Mercury
and Venus, with the result of adding many new and interesting details
concerning these bodies. Three volumes of quarto memoirs and many
bulletins from the Lowell Observatory attest to his industry. He has
been fortunate in securing talented assistants, and their contributions
may be found in the various publications of the Observatory. The
character and importance of Lowell's work may be understood by stating
that the "British Nautical Almanac" is to adopt for the future the
value of the position of the axis of Mars, and the tilt of the planet's
equator to its ecliptic, which was furnished by Professor Lowell in
compliance with a request.
Mr. Lowell is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences;
Member of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain; American
Philosophical Society; Société Astronomique de France; American
Astronomical and Astrophysical Society; Astronomische Gesellschaft;
Société Belge d'Astronomie; Fellow of the American Geographical
Society; Honorary Member Sociedad Astronomica de Mexico; and others.
In 1904 he was awarded the Janssen medal of the Astronomical Society of
France for his researches on Mars.
Mr. Macpherson, in his memoir on Lowell, says that "Mr. Lowell, by his
unwearied devotion to astronomy, has already gained for himself an
enduring reputation."
[Illustration: HENRI PERROTIN]