Talk With Mars

Sir Francis Galton, the distinguished English scientist, has been at woik for several inouths, studying signáis, whích he says the people of Muis have been sending to this earth. These signáis oonsist of a series of flash lights, dots aud dasbes. They appear to resem ble the heliograph signáis nsed by our ariny in the west to send news from oue uiouutain top to auother, says the New ïork Journal. By means of a simple light, wbioh may be turned on and off with inathe: matical accoracy, it is possible to make vip a ooinplicated oode whereby long and detailed niessags may be sent froin one far distaut place to auother, without any medium cf oommnnication other than the ray of light. That this is the means which peoplo of JVlars have flnally adopted for opening comrnuuication with us there appears now to be no reasonable doubt, aeoordiug to the statements of Sir Francia Galton. Edison believed for some time that the people of Mars were trying to telegraph to us by rneaus of electnoal onrrents. For the purpose of takiug up rtièssages, whioh, after traveling milIion8 of miles of ether, weie neoessarily weak, he built the largest receiver in the world, oonsisting of many miles of wire. Edison attaohed a microphone to the wires, and putting nis ear to the diaphragm, uoted a long series of seismio mutterings that were strauge aud unusually active, as the observations of Percival Lowell, at Flagstaff, Arizona, disclosed. Yet, although theie appeareri to be lítele donbt that tbe niagnetio ourrents noticed by Edison were transmitted froua tbis interesting planet, they were so oonfused and mixed that no logical sequenoe oould be established iu tjieir order, Kow, bi-uf.ür, that the light signáis, inetetifi , t the magnetio signáis, sent from i..,;. is, have been studied by a painstakiiig scientist, we ruay be close upon astounding discoveries as to just what these messages mean. Tbe light sigual on Mars was first uoted in the Lick telescope, the biggest spyglass on earth. It was seen to flash out iu the ceutral zoue of the planet soon after Mars rose iuto the eveniug sky. That was two years ago. The sigual light at that time was apparently iu a crude state, comparei to its present condition. It was only noticed at the Lick observatory on two successive eveuings, and tben weut ont. During the past summer, however, this flashlight on Mars has beeu unusually active. The Martiau telegraphers seeru to have got the hang of their instrumeut - which raust be built upon a gigantic scale - and to have devised a successt'ul rnetbod of turning on and off tbe light in the immense area over which it must extend When first studied by Sir Francis Galton the signáis from Mars to the earth appeared to consist of an unrelated and meauingless series of flashes, which might be acoouuted for by unevennesa in the density o1 the medium existing between the earth and Mars. He resolved, however, to make these flashes tbe subjeot of prolonged observation and study. In order to secure a permanent record of the flashes, Sir Franois Galton, working in one of the great'European observatories, constructed an apparatus which was placed next to the telescope he nsed. In this mauhine a long strip of telegraph paper was slowly drawn by clockwork uader a binged pencil. Upon this pencil Sir Franois Galton rested his finger. When the flash gan, he pressed with bis finger, and the pencil made a mark on the paper unroüing beneath it. When the flash ceased, he lifted bis finger, the pencil was instantly raised, and a blank space was left on the paper strip. Por ruaoy weeks Sir Francis Galtou, workiug all night, while Mars was in view, uoted these flash light messages, althoDgb they were meaningless to him. When, however, he began to study the paper strips whioh be had collected, he began to notice a certain crder and regnlarity in the reourrence of some of the signs. Then, by au analytical processie disoovered that these telegraphic ribbons showed that three, and only three different signáis were being employed by the Martiau operators. These sígnala dift'ered only in their lengths and resembled the dots and dashes of the telegraphic code. Sir Prancis Galtou discovered that the dot lasted one second and a quarter and that the dash lasted two seconds and a half. The line, or lougest dash sent by the flash ligbt on Mars laeted five seconds. Of the thousauds of impressions made by Sir Fraucis Galton, every one belonged to oue of these three classes. Theu another riieoovery was made by the BDgli8li soientist. He sucoeeded in separatiug the messages into words. After every group of dots and dashes on the paper slip, Sir Francis Galtou fonnd that there was a considerable space. when the dots and dashes wonld begin again. These spaces indicated the división of one word from another. At greater intervals there was another and longer space. Tbis indioated the beginniug of a new paragiaph. Sir Francis Galtou fonnd that the interval between letters was one and ouehalf seconds, and that the intevals between words were just twice as long, wbile the interval between paragraphs were six seconds in length. A fnrther scrntiny of these mysterious telegraph messages from Mars disclosed the fact that the total number of words of one letter was three, of two letters nine, of three letters 27, of fonr letteis 80 and five letters 248. Sir Franois Galton bas also found that the average time ocoupied ia signaliag thsse words, inclnding the three seconds' panse at the end of each, are 6, 10, 15, 20 and 24 seconds, respectively. He has not yet been able to ' oipher the exact meauing of these words which the Maitiau telegrap'h operators have been flashing toward us, but that they conátitute long massages ; and are meant to be read by the iuhabitants of the eaith, he has uo donbt. Jnst how the hght is made that oarries its rays over the immense distance separating Mars froin the earth reinains j a mystery. Flammarion is of the I ion that it mnst cover hnudreds of square miles, where ruillions of descent lamps may be burning, having i etated that that was the only way in j wiiich the inhabitants of the earth could return a flashlight message to Mars. The strougest and largest light dow in usr on this earth would be useless in attempting to commi nicate witb the people ui Mars, who could not I see it 'even with the most powerful telesoops. It is believèd, as tbe Martians keep on industriously tryiug to open corumunication with ' us, that they are studyiug ns with enormons glasses aud have a tolerably exact knowledge of the condition of affairs on this earth. The vast public vvorks which Schiaparelli and Lowell have discovered on tbe surface of Mars show that the people of that planet have reacbed a state of civilization far beyond anything known to us. They have developed an enorruousl and perfect system of irrigation, building gigantic canals that cover the surface of Mars like a network. These distribute the melting snows from the noith and sonth polar caps of Mars. As these snow caps diminisb, as Lowell and all other recent cbservers bave noted, the flow of great bodies of water into these artificial canals ír plainly disclosed by the new colors they take on. Soon vegetation commences along the banks of tbe oanals, aud tbe advancing season, as it progresses toward north and soutb, while the suow cap recede, is re.vealed by vast stretches of territory which turu from an orange brown to bright green. So. perfect is the Martian system of irrigatiou that all the arid stretches on its surfgce are rsiaehed. Every acre appears to be highly cultivated. lu tbe spring the whole surfaoe presenta an aspect of brilliaut green. This turus to a golden orange as tbe crops ripen. Then the harvest is gathered, tbe canals dry up, and the snow caps on both poles eau be seen in tbe telescope to advance toward the equator. This amaziug phenomenon, all appareatly the result of the high state of development of tbe people of Mars, has been studiously observed and graphically described by Mr. Percival Lowell, of Harvard university, whose iuvestigations have added numerous Martian canals to those previously discovered by Scbiaparelli. To a people capable of conquering adverse nature and aohieving tbe gigantic engineering triumphs of the Martians, the seudiug of flashlight ruessages t,n this earth would appear an easy matter. If they oan build canals a thousand times larger tban the Suez canal, it is likely that tbey bave telescopes much more powerful than the Lick, and that, knowing just what our life upon this earth is like, they are makiug every eflort to open up communication with us. Mr. Percival Lowell bas recently gone to New Mexico to still furtber study Mars, and Sir Francis Qalton is attempting to decipher the nieaaing of the Martian messages he has recordad.