Mars and Moonshine

WHAT SIR J. NORMAN LOCKYER THINKS OF THE TESLA TALES.

From the authorities at St. Martin's-le-Grand, Dr. Tesla's inter-planetary experiments are receiving but little attention. A "Daily Chronicle" representative, eager to ascertain the probable cost of inter-planetary telegraphic messages, should communication be early established, discovered on reaching the General Post Office yesterday that he had been forestalled. A wag or a crank had handed to a busy telegraph clerk a message for Mars, written on the usual foreign telegraph form. The clerk had been equal to the occasion and had asked the sender if he wished to pay for the reply. Expert opinion at the General Post Office regarding Tesla and his reputed discovery may be summed up as "Moonshine."

Sir J. Norman Lockyer, of the Royal College of Science, was then interviewed on the subject. He was frankly incredulous. "Communication with Mars," said he, "is absolutely outside the domain of practical science. We do not, however, forget that many valuable scientific discoveries, when first announced—notably the Roentgen rays and wireless telegraphy — were received with incredulity. As regards Tesla, when he convinces the scientific world that he has succeeded, then," said the Doctor, smilingly, "I shall believe it. Just now I am a 'doubting Thomas' in respect to interplanetary communication.

"In the first place," continued Dr. Lockyer, "I should like to ask Dr. Tesla what grounds he has for assuming that Mars is inhabited at all, and in the next place perhaps he will tell us — assuming that he has had messages from somewhere outside the earth — why he is so certain that they have come from Mars, any more than from Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, or other planetary bodies. Many people are under the impression that Mare is inhabited because they have read of that planet possessing mountains, rivers, and canals — i. e., artificially-constructed waterways. Schiaparelli, the Italian scientist, who has written a great deal upon inter-planetary problems, in describing the physical aspects of Mars, speaks of its Canali — the literal English equivalent of which is canals. But it is well known that it is 'channels,' and not canals, that this distinguished savant refers to. Hence the confusion which often arises even in the minds of well-informed persons regarding Mars."

"What of the disturbances recorded by Tesla's instruments, which are supposed to have been transmitted over millions of miles of inter-planetary space?" asked our representative.

"I attach no Importance whatever to that. The earth is ever in a state of vibration. When the vibrations occur on a large scale they are called earthquakes, when infinitesimal they pass unnoticed save by the most delicate magnetic instruments. If Tesla received a message from Mars the electric transmittory influence must have been general and not local. Why should the electric energy transmitted from Mars to our planet have made its presence manifest solely on a mountain in Colorado? All the magnetic observatories in the world would have been aware of it simultaneously. In fact," added the Doctor, "Tesla could not have had a communication from Mars without the whole world knowing it. Paris and Peking, Berlin and Moscow, would record it as soon as Colorado. Any solar magnetic disturbance affects the whole earth, the same law governs planetary disturbances, and thus the whole of our planet would be conscious of a message from Mars at the same moment.

"Regarding the immense accumulation of electrical energy which Dr. Tesla says Is necessary for the delivery of his inter-planetary signals, it is quite possible for him to concentrate the enormous electrical power he speaks of. He can also launch it into space, but whether it will reach Mars is more than I should like to assert." — London Daily Chronicle.