"Next door to our own planet earth is a beautiful little world tinted
with red. It has snow-white caps at the north and south poles just like
our earth, and trees and flowers perhaps far prettier, for all we know.
But there is not much water on Mars, because Mars is an old planet."
"How do you know it is old?" asked Harry.
[Illustration: THE PLANET MARS.]
"I know it is old," replied his sister, "because the older a planet
is, the smaller are the seas and lakes and the amount of water on its
surface. As the planet gets older and older, the water disappears, until
not a drop is left. But there are wonderful canals all over Mars, and if
there were boats up there, you could go all over Mars by means of these
canals. When Mr. Lowell looked at Mars through his fine telescope, he
not only saw the canals, but round spots where the canals meet."
"Perhaps the spots are landing-places where the captains take new
passengers aboard," said Harry earnestly.
"Perhaps, Harry," said his sister, laughing; "that is, if there are any
people on Mars, and captains and boats. How you would enjoy going in a
yacht up and down these canals, seeing the lovely flowers and scenery
on Mars, for I am sure it must be a very beautiful little world.
"It is not quite as bright on Mars as it is here, since it is farther
away from the sun and only gets one-half as much light and heat. The
year is also nearly twice as long and lasts six hundred and eighty-seven
days, instead of only three hundred and sixty-five. Therefore, the summer
season is nearly twice as long, but not nearly as warm as here."
"Then the winter must be twice as long and much colder than here," Harry
said. "I do not think I should like that. But perhaps the canals freeze
over in the winter time, and there may be fine skating up there?"
[Illustration: CANALS OF MARS (LOWELL).]
"No, the canals disappear altogether during the winter time," replied
Mary; "or, rather, we cannot see them until they reappear again as
faint dark lines in the spring-time. They get wider and wider until the
summer season, then they get narrow again and disappear. Some of them
are double, but the double lines we see may mean only grass and ferns
on each side of a large canal fifty miles wide. When the canals double,
the little round spots at the junctions of the canals darken. Perhaps
these spots are like little islands in a desert, and they are covered
with grass during the summer time."
"I should like to live on one of those little islands," said Harry.
"Wouldn't you, Nellie?"
"If I could take my dollie with me," she replied, as she gazed at it
tenderly. "And we might go for little boat-rides all around the islands.
Do you think there are any little girls on Mars who have beautiful
dollies like mine?"
"I really do not know," replied Mary; "but if there are any people living
on Mars, I do know they are not like us. We could not live there, as
there is not enough air for us to breathe. We would gasp just as that
poor fish did the other day, when Uncle Robert hauled it up out of the
lake and threw it into the boat. We must have air, and plenty of it, if
we want to live."
"So we could not live on Mars, could we, sister?" said Harry.
"It would not be comfortable," replied Mary; "besides, it is not nearly
as warm as here. Poor Uncle Robert would nearly freeze during the long
winter. He would also find another surprise awaiting him if he went to
Mars. Mars is a smaller world than the earth, so everything weighs less."
"Ah! I see," said Harry, clapping his hands with glee. "Uncle would
not be so heavy on Mars. How glad he would be to go there! Poor Uncle
Robert! He is so heavy he just shakes the house when he walks across
the floor. Next time I see him I shall say: 'Go to Mars, Uncle Robert,
and see what will happen to you there.' How much would he weigh on Mars?"
"He weighs two hundred and forty pounds here, and would weigh only ninety
pounds there, and you would weigh only thirty pounds. So I could pick
you up, couch and all, and carry you as easily as Nellie carries her
doll in its doll-carriage."
"Then dollie would weigh nothing at all," said Nellie, looking at her
doll curiously.
Harry looked puzzled, and after thinking a moment, he said to his sister:
"I cannot see why I would weigh less if I went to Mars."
[Illustration: MARS AND THE EARTH.]
"Because the planet being smaller than the earth, it has less power
to attract you and to hold you down to its surface. The earth is like
a great magnet, and if there were not something drawing us to it and
keeping us there, we would be greatly puzzled. Tables and chairs would
not stand firm, and we would stagger about for want of weight, just as
when a diver tries to walk in deep water. He has to have heavy weights
fastened to him so as to keep him in place. A stone that would be quite
heavy on earth would weigh only a few ounces on Mars. Nellie could carry
this large rocking-chair I am sitting in and eight or ten dollies as
well. Do you remember seeing the men at the circus jumping over bars five
feet high? Well, on Mars they could jump fifteen feet, while the clumsy
old elephant we saw there would probably be as graceful and nimble as
a deer."
"How would football be on Mars?" asked Harry.
"Very unlike football here, dear. A good kick would send the ball much
farther than here."
"Is Mars very far away?" asked Nellie. "If we could go there in a train,
would it take us ever so long going?"
"About sixty years," said Mary, laughing, "if the train went a mile a
minute. If you tried to walk it, going four miles an hour and ten hours
a day, it would take you more than two thousand years to get there. So,
I don't think we can take that trip, little girl, can we? But let us
call on the next-door neighbor or neighbors to Mars, for there are about
four hundred and fifty of them."