Champ de Mars

“ The air of this latitude of Mars is so pure, vivid and dustless! My strength and power and vitality seemed boundless. And as in the broad mirror of my bedchamber I viewed my reflection, I leaped with wonder to see the youth I had been, formed anew in lineaments, fairer than Earth's. My son, I have become younger than yourself, age has vanished, and all the restraint of differing years between has vanished with it.
"Alca, Chapman and myself, as is the Martian habit, walked to the quarry mouth, up a winding and hard stone road. This dreary and desolate region seemed to have a charm. ”

“ Chapman and Alca were in front of me, speaking the Martian tongue, while I stood looking backward every few steps, delighted to trace the broad river of the canal winding through the desolation for miles beyond. Then I noticed how rapid and effortless is motion in Mars. Volition is so easy and penetrating, the body becomes a mere plaything for the mind. Every function, every part is swayed into vitality by the mind. ”

“ Nearly two days later Mars was a giant world dead ahead. Ted looked out the window with Jill and Randy and saw a close-up view of the strange land that was to be their new home. A great network of deep, straight gorges split the boundless stretches of red desert. ”

“ But Mars. For centuries men had dreamed of Mars and written of Mars with its canals and dead cities, with its ancient men and strange animals. Everyone knew there was or had been life on Mars.
The flaming rockets reached Mars, and the canals became volcanic crevices, and the dead cities became jagged peaks of red stone, and the endless sands were smooth, smooth, smooth, untouched by feet of living creatures. There was plant-life, a species of green-red lichen in the Polar regions. But nowhere was there real life. ”

“ Mars Wears Its War Mask.
Mars had put on its war mask, and fearful indeed was the aspect of it!
After the first pause of surprise the squadron quickly backed away into the sky, rising rapidly, because, from one of the swirling eddies beneath us the smoke began suddenly to pile itself up in an enormous aerial mountain, whose peaks shot higher and higher, with apparently increasing velocity, until they seemed about to engulf us with their tumbling ebon masses. ”

“ We shall not plunge at once into the dreadful light you fear so much. Keep your eyes glued to the Earth. I can scarcely see Mars any longer. The whole field is getting blank and white."
The rear vista was also growing a pale white, and I could distinguish the form of the Earth as a darker object slightly larger than a full moon when risen. But it was all growing dimmer and dimmer as the penumbra faded toward the perfect light.
"Mars is completely gone now," said the doctor. "The field of the telescope is one pale curtain of light. ”

“ Rockets by hundreds of thousands shot heaven-ward, and then burst in constellations of fiery drops. The sudden illumination thus produced, overspreading hundreds of square miles of the surface of the earth with a light almost like that of day, must certainly have been visible to the inhabitants of Mars, if they were watching us at the time. ”

“ For a long time the ruddy planet had been growing larger and more formidable, gradually turning from a huge star into a great red moon, and then expanding more and more until it began to shut out from sight the constellations behind it. The curious markings on its surface, which from the earth can only be dimly glimpsed with a powerful telescope, began to reveal themselves clearly to our naked eyes.
I have related how even before we had reached the asteroid, Mars began to present a most imposing appearance as we saw it with our telescopes. ”

“ Among the stars which shone in that quarter of the heavens where Mars appeared as the master orb, there was one, lying directly in our path, which, to our astonishment, as we continued on, altered from the aspect of a star, underwent a gradual magnification, and soon presented itself in the form of a little planet. ”

“ The chances are that all of the available fighting force of the planet Mars is now concentrated on this side and in the neighborhood of The Lake of the Sun.
"Possibly, by some kind of X-ray business, they can only see us dimly through the clouds, and if we get a little further away they will not be able to see us at all. ”

“ Only—not one man or woman in fifty thousand would see with their own eyes the rust-red plains of Mars, and the play of light and shadow on a world covered over much of its surface with wide zones of abundant vegetation. Not one in fifty thousand would have a new world to rejoice in, after the long journey through interplanetary space. ”

“ Mars, though considerably smaller than the Earth, is commonly regarded as the planet which, taken all in all, bears most resemblance to the Earth, though only one-fourth its size. Under circumstances which have already been briefly alluded to in Chapter I., Mars exhibits from time to time a slight phase, but nothing approaching in amount the phases presented by the two inferior planets, Mercury and Venus. When in opposition to the Sun, that is to say when on the meridian at midnight, it has a truly circular disc ”

“ To sum up, now, what we know about the atmosphere of Mars: we have proof positive that Mars has an atmosphere; we have reason to believe this atmosphere to be very thin,​—​thinner at least by half than the air upon the summit of the Himalayas,​—​and in constitution, not to differ greatly from our own. ”

“ At first we rose straight away to a height of 200 or 300 miles, thus passing entirely beyond the sensible limits of the atmosphere, and far above the highest point that the smoke could reach.
From this commanding point of view our line of sight extended to an immense distance over the surface of Mars in all directions. Everywhere the same appearance; the whole planet was evidently covered with the smoke. ”

“ But let us hope that the astronomer has seen true, that Mars is not a cold grave, but the abode of happy intelligent creatures, from whom we may learn. In the light of this glorious possibility, signalling to that planet presents itself as a preeminently practical proposition which, to carry out, no human sacrifice could be too great. ”

“ A sun and its satellites in its course around some other center draws the earth and Mars so together that on some parts of the earth's surface the attraction of Mars would overcome that of the earth and gently suck up to itself inhabitants from the earth, who would not suffer death from loss of air, as the atmosphere of both bodies would be mingled. ”

“ Its cover bore the picture of the great Martian Princess and the blazoned emblem of Connemorra Space Lines. Inside were glistening photos of the plush interior of the great vacation liner, and pictures of the domed cities of Mars where Earthmen played more than they worked. Mars had become the great resort center of Earth.
Mel closed the book and glanced again at the Connemorra name. Only one man had ever amassed the resources necessary to operate a private space line. ”

“ Mars is also called an old world, but Mars has air, its snow-caps melt in sheets of water, and we view the colors which mark its seasons, across a distance of 50,000,000 miles. The moon looks as it is, seared and old. There have been many theories advanced to explain the abundance of its craters and their peculiar construction, but some modified form of the volcanic action is the only tenable one. No one theory has as yet met with universal approval.
A great telescope with a 100-inch lens has lately been erected at Mount Wilson, near Pasadena, California. ”

“ Mars is never very brilliant except during favorable oppositions, when, approaching within less than 40,000,000 miles of the earth, it hangs in the midnight [Pg 125] sky, gleaming red like a portent of disaster. The aspect of Mars at such times is truly alarming. It is surprising to see what a quantity of stained sunlight a world only about four thousand miles in diameter is able to reflect across so vast a gap of space. The reason why the ancients connected Mars with the god of war is plain enough when he puts on his color. ”

“ To think that we should have come to the planet Mars to solve one of the standing mysteries of the earth, which had puzzled mankind and defied all their efforts at solution for so many centuries! Here, then, was the explanation of how those gigantic blocks that constitute the great Pyramid of Cheops had been swung to their lofty elevation. It was not the work of puny man, as many an engineer had declared that it could not be, but the work of these giants of Mars.
Aina's Wonderful Story. The Martians' Beautiful Prisoner Recounts Her Marvellous Adventures. ”

“ The atmosphere of Mars is usually very transparent, and fortunately allows us to scrutinise the surface of the planet without putting obstacles in the way m the shape of Martian clouds. Such clouds, however, are not invariably absent. Our view of the surface is occasionally obstructed in such a manner as to make it certain that clouds or mist in the atmosphere of Mars must be the cause of the trouble. ”

“ If in the mind's eye we were to survey the Earth from Mars the only feature we should find at all paralleling the lines in Mars would be found in the level regions of the West, where, for thousands of miles, the land extends in vast level stretches. In these regions would be found lines of railroads running in straight courses, starting from definite places, converging to common centres, their sides, in certain seasons, conspicuous with ripening grain fields, or again the work of the United States Reclamation Bureau running its irrigating canals in various directions through that great region. ”

“ In the greater part of its journey around the heavens Mars seems to move steadily from the west to the east. It moves backwards, in fact, as the moon moves and as the sun moves. It is only during a comparatively small part of its [Pg 213] path that those elaborate movements are accomplished which presented such an enigma to the primitive observer. We show in the adjoining picture (Fig. 49) the track of the actual journey which Mars accomplished in the opposition of 1877. ”

“ Knowing the many analogies between Mars and the Earth, we are justified in asking what conditions really exist in Mars. Instead of flouting at every attempt to interpret the various and complicated markings of its surface, we should soberly consider any rational explanation of these enigmas from the postulate that the two spheres, so near together in space, cannot be so far apart physically, and from the fact that as intelligence is broadly modifying the appearance of the surface of the Earth, a similar intelligence may also be marking the face of Mars. ”

“ Let us now add that this inundation is spread out to a great distance by means of a network of canals, perhaps constituting the principal mechanism (if not the only one) by which water (and with it organic life) may be diffused over the arid surface of the planet. Because on Mars it rains very rarely, or perhaps even it does not rain at all. And this is the proof.
Let us carry ourselves in imagination into celestial space, to a point so distant from the earth that we may embrace it all at a single glance. ”

“ It is confidence, bred from considerations like these, in the superhuman powers of the supposed inhabitants of Mars that has led to the popular idea that they are trying to communicate by signals with the earth. Certain enigmatical spots of light, seen at the edge of the illuminated disk of Mars, and projecting into the unilluminated part—for Mars, although an outer planet, shows at particular times a gibbous phase resembling that of the moon just before or just after the period of full moon—have been interpreted by some, but without any scientific evidence, as of artificial origin. ”

“ The Venusians wanted it on Venus because, as they shrewdly noted, Venus is wide open; the vacationer's planet. Low taxes. Moderate building costs, and a diverting variety of entertainment for the visiting delegates when they should meet. Why the derva-girls alone—
Mars wanted it on Mars, because, they said, the world is centrally located, easily accessible, and the dry climate was sure to preserve the masonry of the Friendship Tower forever, an immortal monument to man's amicability. ”

“ The secular drying up of the oceans and wasting away of the atmosphere on our little neighbor world involved a vast, all-embracing tragedy, some of the earlier scenes of which, if theories be correct, are now reenacted on the half-desiccated planet Mars—a planet, by the way, which in size, mass, and ability to retain vital gases stands about half-way between the earth and the moon. ”

“ No extreme ornamentation is carried out in the erection of buildings on Mars. On the contrary, the simple square outlines characteristic of our own Old Mission architecture seems to prevail on the planet Mars. ”

“ Gravity on the surface of Mars is less than half what it is on Earth; the total mass of the planet is as two to fifteen. It was consequently to be expected that the extent of the Martial atmosphere, and its density even at the sea-level, would be far less than on the heavier planet. Rigging the air-pump securely round the aperture, exhausting its chamber, and permitting the Martial air to fill it, I was glad to find a pressure equal to that which prevails at a height of 16,000 feet on Earth. ”

“ By prolonged study of a modern chart [pg 147] of Mars, and a little gentle stretching of the imagination, the most unskilled observer with the smallest instrument will detect a multitude of canals upon the planet, to which there is but one objection, that they do not exist. There is enough genuine interest about Mars, even when viewed with a small glass, without the importation of anything spurious. ”