Mars as the Abode of LifeMacmillan, 1908 - 288 pages |
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albedo amount angle animals appear atmosphere blue-green body C. O. L. Angular width Camp Whitney canals of Mars carbonic carbonic acid cartouches cause cent centre Challenger Expedition character cloud consequence cooling curve density desert distance double canals Earth eccentricity effect epoch equator evidence evolution existence fact feet Flagstaff glacial glimpsed greater habitat height increase land latitude less light Line on disk Lone Pine longitude Lowell Observatory Lucus Martian mass mean melting meteorites miles Moon mountains northern hemisphere oases observations oceans ochre orbit organic paleozoic particle planet planetary Planetology polar caps pole position present projection proves radiation radius regions relative result rotation San Francisco peaks seas seasons seen snow solar Solar Constant space spectrum summer supposed surface temperature terminator thing tion tricity tropics vegetation velocity visible water-vapor whence whole winter Wire and line zone
Popular passages
Page 185 - ... what this universe may mean. And coordination is only another name for theory, as the law of gravitation witnesses. Now, to be valid, a theory must fulfil two conditions: it must not be contradicted by any fact within its purview, and it must assign an underlying thread of reason to explain all the phenomena observed. Circumstantial evidence must first lead to a suspect, and then this suspect must prove equal to accounting for the facts. This method we shall pursue in the case before us ; and...
Page 151 - ... the canal. This great number of lines forms an articulate whole. Each stands jointed to the next (to the many next, in fact) in the most direct and simple manner — that of meeting at their ends. But as each has its own peculiar length and its special direction, the result is a sort of irregular regularity. It resembles lace-tracery of an elaborate and elegant pattern, woven as a whole over the disk, veiling the planet's face. By this means the surface of the planet is divided into a great number...
Page 138 - ... a" lies. He took in all eight such plates, with the result that the " a " band showed stronger in the spectrum of the planet than in that of the moon. Now in the case of the moon it is through our own atmosphere only that we are looking; in the case of Mars, through our own plus that of Mars. Any difference between the two must be due to the Martian air. A strengthening, then, in the expression of the " a " bands denoted water-vapor present in the atmosphere of Mars.
Page 188 - Here we reached the end of what might directly be b'^mind °' disclosed in the organic economy of the planet. For at this point we brought up before a most significant fact: that vegetable life could thus reveal itself directly, but that animal life could not. Not by its body, but by its mind, would it be known. Across the gulf of space it could be recognized only by the imprint it had made on the face of Mars.
Page 185 - It affords the data vertebrate support, fitting them for the pursuit of what had otherwise eluded search. Coordination is the end of science, the aim of all attempt at learning what this universe may mean. And coordination is only another name for theory, as the law of gravitation witnesses. Now, to be valid, a theory must fulfil two conditions : it must not be contradicted by any fact within its purview, and it must assign an underlying thread of reason to explain all the phenomena observed. Circumstantial...
Page 112 - Its smaller bulk has caused it to age quicker than our earth, and in consequence it has long since passed through that stage of its planetary career which the earth at present is experiencing, and has advanced to a further one, to which in time the earth itself must come, if it be not overwhelmed beforehand by other catastrophe. In detail, of course, no two planets of different initial mass repeat each other's evolutionary history; but in a general way they severally follow something of the same...
Page 210 - ... elephant on Mars could jump like a gazelle. In the second place, age means intelligence, enabling them to yoke nature to their task, as we are yoking electricity. Finally, the task itself would be seven times as light. For gravity on the surface of Mars is only about 38 per cent of what it is on the surface of the earth ; and the work which can be done against a force like gravity with the same expenditure of energy is inversely as the square of that force. A ditch, then, seven times the length...