Is Mars habitable? A critical examination of Professor Percival Lowell's book "Mars and its canals," with an alternative explanation. Alfred Russel Wallace
be double, the appearance of duplicity being more or less periodical. Of 'canals' generally, Mr. Lowell states that they vary in length from a few hundred to a few thousand miles long, one of the largest being the Phison, which he terms 'a typical double canal,' and which is said to be 2250 miles long, while the distance between its two constituents is about 130 miles.3 The actual width of each canal is from a minimum of about a mile up to several miles, in one case over twenty. A great feature of the doubles is, that they are strictly parallel throughout their whole course, and that in almost all cases they are so truly straight as to form parts of a great circle of the planet's sphere. A few however follow a gradual but very distinct curve, and such of these as are double present the same strict parallelism as those which are straight.
Canals extend across the Seas.
It was only after seventeen years of observation of the canals that it was found that they extended also into and across the dark spots and surfaces which by the earlier observers were termed seas, and which then formed the only clearly distinguishable and permanent marks on the planet's surface. At the present time, Professor Lowell states that this "curious triangulation has been traced over almost every portion of the planet's surface, whether dark or light, whether greenish, ochre, or brown in colour." In some parts they are much closer together than in others, "forming a perfect network of lines and spots, so that to identify them all was a matter of extreme difficulty." Two such portions are figured at pages 247 and 256 of Mr. Lowell's volume.
The Oases.
The curious circular black spots which are seen at the intersections of many of the canals, and which in some parts of the surface are very numerous, are said to be more difficult of detection than even the lines, being often blurred or rendered completely invisible by slight irregularities in our own atmosphere, while the canals themselves continue visible. About 180 of these have now been found, and the more prominent of them are estimated to vary from 75 to 100 miles in diameter. There are however many much smaller, down to minute and barely visible black points. Yet they all seem a little larger than the canals which enter them. Where the canals are double, the spots (or 'oases' as Mr. Lowell terms them) lie between the two parallel canals.
No one can read this book without admiration for the extreme perseverance in long continued and successful observation, the results of which are here recorded; and I myself accept unreservedly the substantial accuracy of the whole series. It must however always be remembered that the growth of knowledge of the detailed markings has been very gradual, and that much of it has only been seen under very rare and exceptional conditions. It is therefore quite possible that, if at some future time a further considerable advance in instrumental power should be made, or a still more favourable locality be found, the new discoveries might so modify present appearances as to render a satisfactory explanation of them more easy than it is at present.
But though I wish to do the fullest justice to Mr. Lowell's technical skill and long years of persevering work, which have brought to light the most complex and remarkable appearances that any of the heavenly bodies present to us, I am obliged absolutely to part company with him as regards the startling theory of artificial production which he thinks alone adequate to explain them. So much is this the case, that the very phenomena, which to him seem to demonstrate the intervention of intelligent beings working for the improvement of their own environment, are those which seem to me to bear the unmistakable impress of being due to natural forces, while they are wholly unintelligible as being useful works of art. I refer of course to the great system of what are termed 'canals,' whether single or double. Of these I shall give my own interpretation later on.
CHAPTER III.
THE CLIMATE AND PHYSIOGRAPHY OF MARS
Mr. Lowell admits, and indeed urges strongly, that there are no permanent bodies of water on Mars; that the dark spaces and spots, thought by the early observers to be seas, are certainly not so now, though they may have been at an earlier period; that true clouds are rare, even if they exist, the appearances that have been taken for them being either dust-storms or a surface haze; that there is consequently no rain, and that large portions (about two-thirds) of the planet's surface have all the characteristics of desert regions.
Snow-caps the only Source of Water.
This state of things is supposed to be ameliorated by the fact of the polar snows, which in the winter cover the arctic and about half the temperate regions of each hemisphere alternately. The maximum of the northern snow-caps is reached at a period of the Martian winter corresponding to the end of February with us. About the end of March the cap begins to shrink in size (in the Northern Hemisphere), and this goes on so rapidly that early in the June of Mars it is reduced to its minimum. About the same time changes of colour take place in the adjacent darker portions of the surface, which become at first bluish, and later a decided blue-green; but by far the larger portion, including almost all the equatorial regions of the planet, remain always of a reddish-ochre tint.4
The rapid and comparatively early disappearance of the white covering is, very reasonably, supposed to prove that it is of small thickness, corresponding perhaps to about a foot or two of snow in north-temperate America and Europe, and that by the increasing amount of sun-heat it is converted, partly into liquid and partly into vapour. Coincident with this disappearance and as a presumed result of the water (or other liquid) producing inundations, the bluish-green tinge which appears on the previously dark portion of the surface is supposed to be due to a rapid growth of vegetation.
But the evidence on this point does not seem to be clear or harmonious, for in the four coloured plates showing the planet's surface at successive Martian dates from December 30th to February 21st, not only is a considerable extent of the south temperate zone shown to change rapidly from bluish-green to chocolate-brown and then again to bluish-green, but the portions furthest from the supposed fertilising overflow are permanently green, as are also considerable portions in the opposite or northern hemisphere, which one would think would then be completely dried up.
No Hills upon Mars.
The special point to which I here wish to call attention is this. Mr. Lowell's main contention is, that the surface of Mars is wonderfully smooth and level. Not only are there no mountains, but there are no hills or valleys or plateaux. This assumption is absolutely essential to support the other great assumption, that the wonderful network of perfectly straight lines over nearly the whole surface of the planet are irrigation canals. It is not alleged that irregularities or undulations of a few hundreds or even one or two thousands of feet could possibly be detected, while certainly all we know of planetary formation or structure point strongly towards some inequalities of surface. Mr. Lowell admits that the dark portions of the surface, when examined on the terminator (the margin of the illuminated portion), do look like hollows and may be the beds of dried-up seas; yet the supposed canals run across these old sea-beds in perfect straight lines just as they do across the many thousand miles of what are admitted to be deserts—which he describes in these forcible terms: "Pitiless as our deserts are, they are but faint forecasts of the state of things existent on Mars at the present time."
It appears, then, that Mr. Lowell has to face this dilemma—Only if the whole surface of Mars is an almost perfect level could the enormous network of straight canals, each from hundreds to thousands of miles long, have been possibly constructed by intelligent beings for purposes of irrigation; but, if a complete and universal level surface exists no such system would be necessary. For on a level surface—or on a surface slightly inclined from the poles towards the equator, which would be advantageous in either case—the melting water would of itself spread over the ground and naturally irrigate as much of the surface as it was possible for it to reach. If the surface were not level, but consisted of slight elevations and expressions to the extent of a few scores or a few hundreds of feet, then there would be no possible advantage in cutting straight troughs through these elevations in various directions with water flowing at the bottom of them. In neither case, and in hardly any conceivable case, could these perfectly straight canals, cutting across each other in every direction and at very varying angles, be of any use, or be the work of an intelligent race, if any such race could possibly have been developed under the adverse conditions which exist in Mars.
The
This is on the opposite side of Mars from that shown in the frontispiece.
In 1890 at Mount Wilson, California, Mr. W.H. Pickering's photographs of Mars on April 9th showed the southern polar cap of moderate dimensions, but with a large dim adjacent area. Twenty-four hours later a corresponding plate showed this same area brilliantly white; the result apparently of a great Martian snowfall. In 1882 the same observer witnessed the steady disappearance of 1,600,000 square miles of the southern snow-cap, an area nearly one-third of that hemisphere of the planet.