e god of war
and of carnage, the protector of armies, the inspirer of hatred among
the peoples, it is he who pours out the blood of Humanity in
international hecatombs. Here, again, as in the case of Mercury and
Venus, the appearance has originated the idea. Mars, in fact, burns like
a drop of blood in the depths of the firmament, and it is this ruddy
color that inspired its name and attributes, just as the dazzling
whiteness of Venus made her the goddess of love and beauty. Why, indeed,
should the origins of mythology be sought elsewhere than in astronomy?

While Humanity was attributing to the presumptive influence of Mars the
defects inherent in its own terrestrial nature, this world, unwitting of
our sorrows, pursued the celestial path marked out for it in space by
destiny.

This planet is, as we have said, the first encountered after the Earth.
Its orbit is very elongated, very eccentric. Mars accomplishes it in a
period of 1 year, 321 days, 22 hours, _i.e._, 1 year, 10 months, 21
days, or 687 days. The velocity of its transit is 23 kilometers (14.5
miles) per second; that of the Earth is 30 (19 miles). Our planet,
traveling through space at an average distance of 149 million kilometers
(93,000,000 miles) from the central focus, is separated from Mars by an
average distance of 76 million kilometers (47,000,000 miles); but as its
orbit is equally elliptic and elongated it follows that at certain
epochs the two planets approach one another by something less than 60
million kilometers (37,000,000 miles). These are the periods selected
for making the best observations upon our neighbor of the ruddy rays.
The oppositions of Mars arrive about every twenty-six months, but the
periods of its greatest proximity, when this planet approaches to within
56 million kilometers (34,700,000 miles) of the Earth, occur only every
fifteen years.

Mars is then passing perihelion, while our world is at aphelion (or
greatest distance from the Sun). At such epochs this globe presents to
us an apparent diameter 63 times smaller than that of the Moon, _i.e._,
a telescope that magnifies 63 times would show him to us of the same
magnitude as our satellite viewed with the unaided eye, and an
instrument that magnified 630 times would show him ten times larger in
diameter.

In dimensions he differs considerably from our world, being almost half
the size of the Earth. In diameter he measures only 6,728 kilometers
(4,172 miles), and his circu