resulting fractures would take. It would be well to have
several duplicates of each ball, and, as soon as tension through
contraction manifests itself, to try the effect of firing very small
charges of small shot to ascertain whether such impacts would start
radiating fractures. When taken from the moulds, the balls should be
suspended in a slight current of air, and kept rotating, to reproduce
the planetary condition as nearly as possible.
The exact size and material of the cores, the thickness of the heated
outer crust, the material best suited to show fracture by contraction,
and the details of their treatment, might be modified in various ways as
suggested by the results first obtained. Such a series of experiments
would probably throw further light on the physical conditions which have
produced the gigantic system of fissures or channels we see upon the
surface of Mars, though it would not, of course, prove that such
conditions actually existed there. In such a speculative matter we can
only be guided by probabilities, based upon whatever evidence is
available.
CHAPTER VIII.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION.
This little volume has necessarily touched upon a great variety of
subjects, in order to deal in a tolerably complete manner with the very
extraordinary theories by which Mr. Lowell attempts to explain the
unique features of the surface of the planet, which, by long-continued
study, he has almost made his own. It may therefore be well to sum up
the main points of the arguments against his view, introducing a few
other facts and considerations which greatly strengthen my argument.
The one great feature of Mars which led Mr. Lowell to adopt the view of
its being inhabited by a race of highly intelligent beings, and, with
ever-increasing discovery to uphold this theory to the present time, is
undoubtedly that of the so-called 'canals'--their straightness, their
enormous length, their great abundance, and their extension over the
planet's whole surface from one polar snow-cap to the other. The very
immensity of this system, and its constant growth and extension during
fifteen years of persistent observation, have so completely taken
possession of his mind, that, after a very hasty glance at analogous
facts and possibilities, he has declared them to be 'non-natural'--
therefore to be works of art--therefore to necessitate the
presence of highly intelligent beings who have designed and constructed
them. This i
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