THE CHICKASHA DAILY EXPRESS — MAY 15, 1908
MEN OF MARS AND OTHER THINGS ♢ What a Visit to
Mars would Reveal—Perhaps?
When one speaks of Martians one is apt to think only of those canal builders, those beings who, if we are to accept Mr. Lowell’s remarkably well-sustained conclusions, now irrigate with melting polar snows and cultivate what were once the ocean beds of their drying planet.
But, after all, they cannot live there alone; they can be but a part of the natural history of Mars in just the same way that man is but a part of the natural history of the earth. They must have been evolved from other related types; and so we must necessarily give our attention to the general fauna and flora of this other world we are invading in imagination before we can hope to deal at all reasonably with the ruling species.
It is plausible, at any rate, to suppose that on Mars also, if there is life, green chlorophyll will lie at the base of the edifice; in other words, that there will be a vegetable kingdom. We know enough to say now that the vegetable forms with which we are familiar upon earth would not “do,” as people say, on Mars, and we can even indicate in general terms in what manner they would differ. They would not do because, firstly, the weight of things at the surface of Mars is not half what it would be upon earth; and, secondly, the general atmospheric conditions are very different. Whatever else they may be, the Martian herbs and trees must be adapted to these conditions.
