What the Martians Might Say to Us in Reply

FOR every single perplexity of interpretation we encounter in our study of the surface workings of Mars the Martian would encounter a dozen perplexities in interpreting the various features on the surface of the earth. 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. They form the basis for one of the first questions the Martian would ask us in seeking information about the earth.

The perennial character of the vegetation in the tropics would also be a puzzle requiring much explanation from us. Even if the Martian recognized oases in the deserts of America and Africa, the result 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 of the earth must, in the probable opinion of the Martian, at times suffer condensation, and the impact of the rain drops would, from their velocity and weight, smash everything in the way of life. Life would apparently exist only in forms supported by appendages, with legs of iron to sustain their weight and a turtle-like crust, to be impervious to rain drops; 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, or we explained to him, that these long, sinuous channels, extending for thousands of miles, are identical with the little rivulets he had studied near his own pole.

If Mars is an older sphere, we trust it has outgrown the superstitions which still hamper man in his interpretation of the inexorable phenomena of nature.