An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars

by Henri de Parville

  “Tomorrow if the President will authorize me to do it, I shall pursue these considerations.”

  LETTER VII

  A stroll in the Heavens. The plurality of worlds. What is the Sun? A balloon of superheated vapor. Inhabitants of the Sun—none. Discovery of mines 38 million leagues from Earth. Why can one not see in the dark? Mr. Ziegler’s opinion. Hemeralopia. Is Mercury inhabited? A word about Venus. Interplanetary humans. Of those who have been or are no longer. Situation on Earth. The Moon. Has it an atmosphere? How Mr. Greenwight settles the question. The Selenites.

  The vice-president retains the floor.

  Mr. Greenwight: “If I am not in danger of abusing the assembly’s time, I shall now subject the principal planets of our solar system to a rapid review.”

  (“Go on! Go on!”)

  “I have previously established, gentlemen, that the grouping of atoms and molecules is not only linked to the loss of each world’s quantity of motion, but also depends on other elements, such as variations of gravitation, centrifugal force, etc.

  “The combinations and the aspect of matter vary in each planet according to the value of these elements; we shall soon see within what limits. Let us examine each world with some care, and let us begin with the pivot of the solar system, the Sun.

  “When one casts an eye over the elements of the solar system, one is easily convinced that the Sun must be the youngest, the least advanced of all the worlds; its evolution has scarcely begun; it has lost hardly any quantity of motion. At the very most, it is in the second phase of its existence, still in its infancy. If it were permissible to compare its life with that of a human being, I would say that it was six or seven years old at the most. Its matter is scarcely condensed, but the atoms that were once at liberty have drawn sufficiently close together to group themselves, having already formed gases and vapors. It is probably in an entirely gaseous state. The nucleus is doubtless only in the state of dissociated matter. We have not yet reached the time when the mass will become liquid. It is a mere balloon, a sphere of superheated gas enclosing solid particles, at least in the superficial regions that have cooled down to the greatest extent.36

  “Research carried out in Europe by means of spectral analysis has demonstrated the existence within the Sun of several terrestrial metals reduced to vapor. This tends to prove—and I recommend this example to Mr. Rink—that the atoms adopt certain groupings everywhere, in spite of differences of mass, gravitation, etc.

  “This demonstrates in addition, that the formation of certain composites occurs at enormous temperatures, and that chemists, unless they find a means of creating a similar temperature, have no chance of attaining the isolation of atoms in order to decompose reputedly simple bodies.

  “Finally, it is permissible also to conclude from this that mines, the metal seams that traverse terrestrial rocks, are really no more than infiltrations of central matter still in ebullition. I do not insist on these consequences; they are more familiar to the savant chemists included in his assembly than they are to me.

  “The Sun will continue its evolution as time passes. It will grow old and cool like other worlds, but it will certainly remain the last in the system, and when all the other centers of motion in our cooling system are dead, it will still be alive and will survive for a long time yet, alone in the immensity of space. It is not most certainly not inhabited at this moment. Can you imagine organisms living at the vaporization temperature of silver? Vaporous organisms?

  “An organism—and this is perhaps a definition—requires an assemblage of solid, liquid and gaseous elements in a continual state of reaction; now, the Sun still possesses only one of these necessary elements; its organisms are in the process of elaboration, nothing more. Will they appear in future? Why not? Life seems to reside in a given quantity of motion, just like heat and light. Too great a quantity of motion and heat becomes light; not enough, and light becomes merely heat; too much quantity of motion, and you prevent matter from organizing itself or reflecting in itself that quantity of motion; too little, and the end to be attained is lost again. Exactly the right quantity is required. That is why you see life manifesting itself only at certain temperatures, and disappearing in the same way. Mr. Ziegler, who has explained his ideas in this regard to me, shares my opinion; he will address the subject much better than I can; I shall therefore pass on, and content myself with saying that I do not see why the Sun should not welcome inhabitants later on.”

  Mr. Newbold: “Does Mr. Greenwight think, the Sun being the conservator and regulator of force and not receiving light or heat from any neighboring star, that its inhabitants might live in the most profound darkness?”

  Mr. Greenwight: “I am perhaps not competent to answer my honorable president, but I ask the physiologists, Mr. Rink, Mr. Wintow and Mr. Ziegler, whether it is not perfectly admissible that certain creatures, even of a superior order, can see in the dark?”

  Mr. Wintow: “I agree entirely with Mr. Greenwight’s opinion; we have animals on Earth that can only see at night; it’s a matter of the adaptation of the retina. Most animals are conformed in such a fashion that solar light does not inconvenience them. It is rather like a trigger that requires activation; the trigger is tight here because the force is great, but is can be the case that a much less powerful force could activate it if it were slackened. The trigger is the optic nerve, the force is the quantity of motion. The quantity of motion, the caloric 37 inherent in the Sun itself, is doubtless sufficient to stimulate the retina, in order that the organisms of that star might see.”

  Mr. Ziegler: “in support of what my savant colleague has just said, I will add that, when solar light has acted too strongly, when the force has overstimulated the retina and modified the elasticity of the nerve, human beings can no longer see anything at all once the Sun has disappeared beyond the horizon; the sensitivity is blunted. This affliction, which physicians call hemeralopia, is most often encountered among soldiers, in sentries obliged to remain exposed to the Sun’s ardor for long periods of time. They can be cured by restoring the nerve’s elasticity; to do that, the invalid is kept in a dark room for several days. This example, combined with many others, leaves me in no doubt that. Organisms will be able to see quite well in physical conditions other than those present on our planet.”

  Mr. Greenwight: “I therefore conclude, gentlemen, that the Sun will, in all probability, be inhabited one day—but millions of years will pass yet before the quantity of motion the world possesses will decline to the point of permitting life to develop there.

  “The first world encountered in space in going from the center to the periphery is Mercury. Following the order of masses, it is the eighth; it is one of the worlds whose evolution is furthest advanced. A long time has already passed since it was vaporous or liquid; its solidified surface must therefore have a rather considerable thickness. Its density is 6, the largest; its gravitation 5, stronger than the Earth’s. The solar heat is represented by the figure 7, that of Earth being 1. If we continue to reckon in terms of a human life, Mercury must be about 35 years old.

  “Matter condensed there more rapidly than elsewhere; its combinations must have been less numerous there than in the other worlds. As for organisms, it is quite certain that they exist and that they have already existed for a long time. They must differ from terrestrial organisms, but within restricted limits. Inversely to what we said about solar organisms a moment ago, it is necessary here to imagine a much more resistant retina to permit organisms to see in a luminous environment as intense as that of Mercury.

  “The creatures must also be of an inferior order to those of Earth—smaller in size. Liquids must form at more elevated temperatures than those on Earth, because the pressure there is greater. Perhaps organisms were able to develop when the temperature reached 200 degrees; in any case, the higher creatures on the scale would only have been able to appear later. Mercury is advanced enough for us to be able to say that a species homologous with humankind must already
have existed on the planet; it must now be inhabited by the homologues of the human species destined to replace us on the Earth.

  “There is, in fact, no reason to refuse the supposition that all species are replaced in parallel on every world, in accordance with successive biological conditions; it follows that, on every advanced world, if it were possible to dig a shaft through the series of layers that compose it, one would discover the sequence of creatures that had existed on the surface, including species that presently have counterparts and analogues on more slowly-developing worlds. In the same way, a shaft on a slowly-developing world would reveal the past of the advanced world—a question of phases and continuous evolution. Let us pass on. 38

  Venus is undoubtedly the world most similar to the Earth in all its physical conditions. If a profound conviction could qualify as an argument in scientific matters, I would not hesitate to claim that a voyager suddenly transported from our world to Venus would not find himself any more disorientated than if he had been taken blindfold to some other region of the Earth: the same quantity of life, very nearly, emerging from the same matter, the same nature and the same inhabitants, perhaps a little more advanced than on Earth.

  This is what theory says; observation confirms it in every point. One discovers mountains, an atmosphere identical to that of our world, with trade winds like those in our tropical regions.39 The inhabitants must therefore be almost completely identical to us, and if one dug down into Venus one would probably find the same sequence of creatures there as on Earth. The organisms there have developed in parallel. Born and living in the same eras, Venus and Earth will die in the same era.

  The Earth, like the preceding planet, is still in the early phases of its evolution. It is young, it is adolescent; perhaps it is no more than 20 or 21 years old. It is not long since the quantity of motion it possesses has become small enough to permit the existence of superior beings; the series of its creatures will doubtless take a long time yet to perfect itself—because, it is worth mentioning in passing, once a world has cooled sufficiently for the solidification of its surface to take place, the loss of caloric only takes place thereafter with extreme slowness. One can even add that, so far as we are concerned, the Earth has not lost any heat during historic times.

  “Here, for the first time, we find a satellite: the Moon. The Earth is to the Moon what the Sun now is to the Earth. In the beginning, the Earth was the Moon’s sun, and the Moon was a little planet lit by that secondary sun. Since then, the little planet has lived, and has gone through a fraction of the phases of its existence; when the Earth descended to the rank of planet, it descended itself to the rank of satellite.

  “The Moon is old; its mass is 1/80 of the Earth’s; it has therefore lived 80 times faster; it must be solidified in large part, and very cold. We shall make an observation here that is very important, and which probably provides the best indicator of he advanced age of a world: I mean the atmosphere.

  “What is a world’s atmosphere? Gentleman, I consider this fluid envelope as the residue, or the smoke, of the internal chemical reactions that have formed the world. At the moment of solidification, the lightest vapors escape through fissures and rise above the vapors susceptible of being condensed and producing primitive ground. An atmosphere must be constituted in the beginning by complex compounds which, as cooling progresses, are further aggregated and become solid or liquid.

  “In consequence, a progressive process of triage is produced—a purification—and only the most elementary compounds remain above the crust: those present in too great an excess to enter into rapid combination, or whose weak density distanced them from the surface. These fluid compounds condense slightly every day, by reason of cooling, but so slowly that we cannot yet perceive it.

  “In addition, they move undetectably from without to within by a process of endosmosis,40 and slowly combine with the interior materials, to the extent that every atmosphere is destined to condense, diminishing by degrees until it eventually disappears entirely. Thus, every young world has a complex and dense atmosphere; every old world only preserves traces.

  “There is nothing surprising, therefore, in encountering atmospheres on Venus and Earth that are fairly pure and not very dense. Nor is there anything surprising in finding no trace of one on the Moon; it must be so lacking in density and height that it can escape our observation. Nevertheless, a rough and approximate calculation can at least furnish us with some clarification on this point.

  “We can assume, without straying too far from the truth, that, at the outset, the heights of the lunar and terrestrial atmosphere were proportional to the radius of each world and inversely proportional to their gravitation, density and mass. On submitting these givens to calculation, one finds that the height of the lunar atmosphere must now be about 80 times less than that of the terrestrial atmosphere.41

  “Now, the height of the terrestrial atmosphere measures at least 30 leagues.42 The lunar atmosphere must therefore still extend about 1500 meters. It is no wonder that we no longer perceive any trace of it. Its density must be so feeble, in fact, that it must correspond to that of the air which remains in our pneumatic machines when we have created a void therein.

  “The atmosphere of the Moon bathes the bases of its high mountains 43 as the sea bathes our coasts. In a few more thousands of years, all the lunar gas will have been absorbed into the world’s mass.

  “The old age of the Moon is further attested by its density. The force of aggregation on our satellite is, for an equal quantity of motion, much less than that of the Earth, and yet its density is three-fifths of Earth’s. This is the result of extreme cooling and a great depletion of the quantity of motion.

  “Is the Moon inhabited? I think not. Has it been? I am convinced of it. Organisms must always have been subject to less pressure there than on Earth; they ought to have appeared later than on Earth at a similar degree of cooling; they ought, by the same token, to disappear later. Liquids, indeed, were only able to form there at a lower temperature than on Earth, and solids to constitute themselves at a similarly lower temperature. In sum, everything encourages the belief that, existence there being more rapid, the creatures must have been inferior, smaller and more delicate.

  “We do not believe that any inhabitants still exist, for there are no longer any liquids 44 on the lunar surface; if they do exist, they can only belong to the most infinitesimal ranks of organic creation, perhaps organisms buried deep in the ground, which have so far escaped freezing.

  “The observation needs to be made here that, in addition to a world’s own heat, it is necessary to take account of the radiant heat of its illuminating world. Now, it is quite certain that lunar cooling was once tempered by the neighborhood of the Earth, as it was then and is now by solar radiation; the preceding results therefore offer no more than a simple and crude approximation. This remark is worth making, for it seems to me that the development of life also depends greatly on the sum of motion transmitted by the principal world.

  “I beg the assembly’s pardon for developing my considerations at such length, but they bear directly on the subject. I am happy to explain my views and submit them to the criticism of the most illustrious scientists in the New World. This will perhaps be a unique opportunity for me, and I am taking advantage of it. Tomorrow, I shall examine the conditions of the habitability of Mars, the planet that seems the most interesting of all in the context of this debate.

  LETTER VIII

  From world to world. Sequence. On the planet Mars. Seas, continents and ice-caps. Why men existed on Mars a long time ago. Inferior beings. The mummy. Jupiter is indeed Jupiter. Still liquid. Do not, therefore, place inhabitants everywhere. Why one would like to be a man on Jupiter. Their supremacy. Saturn. Neptune and Uranus. Life in the worlds. Summary. Real estate in the future.

  Mr. Greenwight: “I shall be brief, gentlemen, and remind you of the fundamental characteristics of Mars: density 5.1; gravitation 1/2; rotation 24 hours; mass 1/8 that of
the Earth.

  “These figures establish that Mars is in advance of us, and that its cooling must be considerable. A long time has already passed since vital conditions analogous to those of Earth have disappeared from its surface. Its rotation is very similar to that of our globe, but is gravitation is much smaller; the forces of combination there are less, and its density would be inferior to that of the Earth if the more advanced cooling had not further condensed matter there, for which reason it is almost equal.

  “The lesser surface gravitation implies that organisms must have appeared at a lower temperature than on Earth, and must also have disappeared at a lower one. They ought still to exist, though, and the creatures that live there now belong to a stage more highly advanced than Earth’s present human beings. It is necessary to go back to a much earlier epoch to find an analogue of the human species. Do I need to say that the organisms of Mars must nevertheless be some way behind those of Earth? Life there is more rapid, the creatures less susceptible of improvement.

  “The mummy from the planet Mars, if that is where it originated, must therefore come very close to representing the human type of Mars analogous to the human type of Earth. On the evidence of the amphorae and other objects discovered by Mr. Paxton, we have the right to suppose that this type belongs to one of the planet’s earlier human species. One can even conclude, tentatively, from the form of the vases that the human mind passes through the same phases and undergoes the same transformations everywhere—but I should not anticipate; that will enter into the discussions later. If my colleagues the chemists of the assembly will permit me, I should simply like to recommend to their attention the molecular grouping of the aerolith—the density of the matter. It follows from what I have said that the aerolith ought to differ in this respect from terrestrial bodies of the same nature, since the elements vary with the age of a world. The substance of which the mummy is made, the bones, ought not to have exactly the same density or the same chemical composition as similar terrestrial compounds.