An Inhabitant of the Planet Mars

by Henri de Parville

  “I shall add in conclusion, gentlemen, that the telescopic examination of Mars seems to have revealed continents, seas and ice-caps there—which provides full confirmation of my expectations.45

  “The atmosphere seems to be denser than ours. That is entirely consistent with the cooling and with the lesser power of aggregation possessed by the world; it would require more time to absorb its atmosphere. As I have observed to Mr. Rink, the physical aspect of Mars seems to prove that, in spite of the differences in the characteristic elements of each planet, matter there appears to take much the same forms; we find liquid, ice and solid materials on Mars entirely analogous to ours, if the aerolith really can provide us with a specimen of it.

  “Finally, the juxtaposition of ice and liquid makes the important role that solar radiation plays in the conservation of life perfectly evident. Without the Sun, Mars would undoubtedly be too cold to conserve matter in a liquid state on its surface.

  “You see, gentlemen, that I am content to sketch out the physical characteristics of the world; I shall leave the work of extrapolating the physiological and biological aspects of the subject to the competent scientists. I shall rapidly conclude my voyage of exploration.

  “Jupiter comes next after Mars. Fundamental characteristics: density, 1.3, very similar to that of the Sun, 1.4; rotation 9 hours; mass 342 times that of the Earth; gravitation 2.5.

  “After the Sun, it is certainly Jupiter that conserves the greatest quantity of motion; it is very young, in its infancy, and its surface has scarcely begun to solidify. It density is also low, and its atmosphere must be extensive and dense. Bands are, in fact, visible on its disk, which leave no doubt regarding the considerable gaseous envelope that surrounds the world.

  “Let no one tell us, thoughtlessly, that Jupiter possesses inhabitants. It is too much to imagine that any but the most primitive organisms might have developed there as yet. Later, the successive creatures of the scale of life will be found there, entirely in correspondence with the varying temperature of the world, but at the present point in its evolution Jupiter is not yet accessible to complex creatures. Organisms will, moreover, develop there gradually; everything tends to imply, given its greater quantity of motion, that they will be superior to those of Earth, and superior to those of all the other worlds in our solar system—but we shall certainly have been gone for a long time when the species analogous to the present-day Earthly human species makes its appearance on Jupiter. The flora and fauna there will certainly be more complex and more perfected than anywhere else. Mythology was right: Jupiter is indeed Jupiter.

  “It has four satellites, four little planets warmed by this secondary sun. They must be inhabited now by inferior organisms.

  “After Jupiter comes Saturn: mass, 103; rotation, 10 hours; density 0.7; gravitation 1.

  “After Jupiter, this is the youngest planet; it must, however, be solidified at its surface. The great quantity of motion that it still possesses and its rotation—considerable in proportion to its diameter—explain its low density. In all probability, Saturn can only be inhabited by primitive organisms.

  “This planet presents, as you know, a singular anomaly: it is surrounded by a large equatorial ring, which floats in space without touching it. In the beginning, matter was carried towards the equator of the world by centrifugal force; then, when cooling began, it must have been unequal, and the equatorial layer must have been separated, continuing on its path and following the rotation of the world as if it were still an integral part of its mass. The further the cooling progressed, the further away the ring drew; it even broke up into several secondary rings—which appears to me to be irrefutable proof of its solidification. Having little mass, in fact, it would soon have lost enough motion to solidify. The curious fact is that the ring is, in sum, a satellite, and that organisms must have developed, and doubtless still subsist, there. They must not be very far advanced on the scale of creatures, but if they have sufficient sentience to conceive the beauty of the spectacle that surrounds them, they must have fallen into ecstasy more than once before the magnificent globe that moves through the medium of space along with them, providing them with light and heat.

  “The inverse will soon be manifest, and the future inhabitants of Saturn will enjoy the singular view of that immense ring, which separates them from the heavens like an immense guard-rail. Saturn has seven satellites, doubtless too cold to permit life to exist there still.

  “Neptune, which comes next,46 has a mass of 87, a very low density of 1.8 and a gravitation of 1.33. It receives very little of the Sun’s warmth, and must already have cooled too far to permit the development of organisms. Because of its distance, its speed of rotation remains undetermined; given its low density, we think that it must be considerable.

  “Uranus only has a mass of 77, older than Neptune and, in consequence, more distant still. It has a very low density, comparable to that of Saturn, 0.9; gravitation 2/3; rotation unknown but certainly very rapid. Matter there is not very condensed, in spite of the greater cooling relative to the preceding planets, but doubtless sufficient to give birth to organisms.

  “I have finished, gentlemen, and will summarize this overly long excursion through the constituent molecules of the celestial corpus of which we are a part. I have briefly described the conditions of habitability of planets. I shall repeat them now in a few words, so that each of you might make a good guess as to the world from which the strange individual discovered by Messrs. Paxton and Davis might have come. Here, as elsewhere, theory will doubtless be able to guide us toward the truth.

  LIFE IN THE WORLDS

  Sun: uninhabited as yet.

  Mercury: inhabited; primitive creatures; homologues of future terrestrial species.

  Venus: inhabited; creatures entirely analogous to those of Earth; corresponding fauna and flora.

  The Earth: inhabited for a long time already, and will be for a long time yet.

  The Moon: no longer inhabited, but has been.

  Mars: inhabited; creatures analogous to those of Earth, smaller and inferior; homologues of Earthly species a long time ago; now inhabited by creatures corresponding in the organic scale to the future inhabitants of Earth.

  Jupiter: not yet inhabited; satellites inhabited.

  Saturn: primitive creatures; satellites possibly still inhabited.

  Neptune: doubtless inhabited by primitive creatures.

  Uranus: rudimentary organisms.

  “It is sufficient, gentlemen, to run through this summary to be convinced that the interplanetary man, if he really does have an extraterrestrial origin, can only have come, according to this list, from the planet Venus or the planet Mars.

  “All the geologists will doubtless share my opinion when I say on my own behalf that I have no hesitation in choosing between the two hypotheses and opting for Mars.

  “Venus and the Earth have matched one another step for step, or very nearly; now, humans cannot have existed on Earth when the aerolith fell, since the appearance of the human species on our globe is posterior to the deposit from which the bolide was recovered; therefore, the analogous type cannot have existed yet on Venus.

  “On the other hand, it follows from the preceding argument that the Martian homologue of the terrestrial human species must have made its appearance in an epoch considerably anterior to ours; there is, therefore, nothing astonishing in encountering one in an ancient geological stratum. Finally, if—as it is permissible to suppose—the dimensions of organisms on each world are proportional to their volumes, the relative smallness of the mummy points to a Martian origin.

  “One sees, therefore, when all is said and done, that theory accords very well with the sketch of our solar system inscribed on the plate found in the aerolith. When one sees that Mars, whose volume is smaller than that of the neighboring planets, is drawn larger, and sets that beside the distances separating the Sun, Mercury, Venus and the Earth, the first idea that springs to mind is surely that the sketch was made by a
creature native to Mars.

  “Given this, I therefore agree wholeheartedly with the conjectures of Messrs. Paxton and Davis. As considerations departing from a very distant point draw us by a different route to the same conclusion, I have no hesitation in drawing the attention of the assembly to the striking coincidence; it is a strong argument in favor of the hypothesis of the fall of a genuine inhabitant of the planet Mars.

  “Such is, gentlemen, the thesis that I want to develop, and I thank you for having listened to me with such indulgence.”

  Mr. Stek: “Mr. President, I ask permission to make the observation to Mr. Greenwight that he has forgotten the Moon.”

  Mr. Greenwight: “The mummified individual that has been discovered here is explicable without taking a further step. I should like to say to my honorable opponent that, in all probability, the lunar homologue of the terrestrial human species would also be proportional to the volume of the satellite. Now, if one compares the volumes of the Earth, the Moon and Mars, one finds that the dimensions of a man of the Earth’s surface and those of the interplanetary man are in the same ratio as the volumes of our world and Mars; when one makes the comparison with the Moon one finds a height much too considerable. The inhabitants of the Moon must certainly have been smaller than us, to a fairly considerable extent. It was for that reason, which is as good as any other, in parallel occurrence, that I neglected to take our satellite into account. Moreover, I shall ask here for the support of the chemists. The density of the aerolith might shed some light on the question.”

  Mr. Liesse: “Tomorrow we shall know the density of the principal specimens of the aerolith.”

  Several members came to congratulate Mr. Greenwight. The session ended at 5 p.m.

  LETTER IX

  The conference hall. News of the aerolith. Nothing new comes of it. The journalists’ bench. Seringuier yawns. Williamson criticizes. What a singular little man Williamson is! A portrait on the hoof. Noirot de Sauw. A cross between a Chinese and an Austrian. Literary patchworks. Abbé Omnish. Might the interplanetary man have come from the Moon? What matter answers. Messrs. Haughton and Ziegler. Are you a materialist, sir? Spontaneous generation in America. What is life?

  The conference hall is even fuller than on previous days. The discussions are making progress, it is true, but curiosity-seekers are arriving in ever-greater numbers. Several boats and convoys have to be employed to maintain provisions to Paxton House. The owner has had even more log cabins built. The proceedings are literally crowded out; the aerolith is surrounded and people are pressed against the windows of the hall, avid to catch snatches of the discussion. Many people, fortunately, come in the morning from Fort Ben and go back there in the evening.

  The immense bolide has now been entirely perforated, but without any new results. Mr. Vanbrée, Mr. Davis and several more of the commission’s geologists have explored the surroundings, to see if other specimens of interplanetary rock might be found—a few fragments analogous to our little present-day aeroliths—but the research is very difficult in a milieu of virgin forest, genuinely impenetrable without recourse to axes and fire.

  We are almost all present on the journalists’ bench. Abbé Omnish, Seringuier and Noirot de Sauw find the debates very tedious; Seringuier, however, bears his irritation patiently and writes articles for a popular almanack. “The public reads it,” he says, “stupid or not—what does it matter? With my name at the bottom, and the Hacken imprint, if the book were stitched together from blank pages they’d still find it very interesting.” He’s right, though! The public is naïve.

  Williamson, a very short man who would like to make as much noise as four, but who cannot contrive to do so with his confused prose, criticizes Greenwight, Newbold Stek, the debates and everything else. He would criticize himself if he dared! Williamson, under the pretext of writing about science, preaches every Sunday for two long columns in the Strand, a daily newspaper. Do you think, perhaps, that he is occupied in popularizing the question on the agenda? Bah! The matter is too simple for him; he writes as if the readers were familiar with it; he puts the cart before the ox by discussing, seriously and sententiously, the scientific method. He criticizes again and always, without noticing that he is crying in the wilderness! Criticism is very interesting, but it is necessary to know, before all else what is being criticized. What does it matter, readers of the Strand, provided that Williamson is criticizing? A veterinarian by profession, I believe, he dives into questions of astronomy and mechanics with an admirable bluntness; he never bothers with matters of veterinary art. He calls this treating science without prejudice, as if science were not SCIENCE! What a priceless little fellow!

  Last year, lectures were much in vogue in Richmond. He advertised the opening of his course in all the newspapers and plastered the walls with posters. “No hall,” he said, “will ever be great enough to contain my audience.” Alas, poor colleague, the day arrived all too quickly. The professor had to share the same fate as your eccentric Ampère. You will recall that one day, when the weather was bad, having arrived at the College de France by cab, he began his lesson and concluded it in front of a single very attentive listener. Absorbed by his subject, he expended the time in the regular manner, then looked at his watch and said: “Oh, I beg your pardon, Monsieur, for having kept you for such a long time.” The listener looked at him in astonishment. “But Monsieur knows perfectly well,” he said, “that I have the time to spare; has he not hired me for an hour?” Alas, Ampère’s sole listener was his cab-driver!

  It was the same for Williamson, who—being less distracted, and with good cause—had plenty of time to be vexed by the circumstance. One sole disciple presented himself, and this single listener was the agent for his course. Williamson has abandoned lecturing. In addition, the Richmond Medical Academy has quite categorically refused him one of its vacant chairs. Williamson will have to grow much older before growing in stature.

  Noirot de Sauw, as stunted as an old Norman apple tree tormented by the years, hides his ignorance in his confidence. He is well past sixty; he is bent over; in his profile he resembles a chimpanzee, without any flattery; in his face, he is a living Egyptian mummy. What a singular individual! In private life he bears a name with a particle, which gives way to a simple parenthesis at the end of his articles. Although his name is almost French, he does not resemble a Frenchman in appearance or character; he is more like a cross between a Chinese and an Austrian.

  The style resembles the man: old, stunted, dry and taut, without any synovial fluid in the joints; it is as if that his sentences were threatening to crack and splinter at each punctuation mark; it is the sort of prose that it is time to put away. Noirot de Sauw does little himself, very little. He quotes documents relentlessly, puts all his notes in place and stitches his sentences together. Then he signs the patchwork and sends it pompously to all the academies, before which he bows down to the ground. It is said, in fact, that he has academic pretensions; may God protect all the academics there have ever been and are to come.

  Sad, sad! Envious, jealous and cantankerous towards everyone—sad, sad! In sum, he is a type; he is pardoned out of love of science.

  Abbé Omnish is another type; but you know him. Is there anyone on the surface of the world who does not know him? A good colleague and genuinely knowledgeable, he has few rivals, if any.

  I shall come back to the debates, from which I have allowed myself to be distracted while contemplating the handsome and sanctimonious face of Seringuier.

  Mr. Newbold: “The floor is Mr. Liesse’s.”

  Mr. Liesse: “I only a have a few words to say, Mr. President. Mr. Greenwight, in his remarkable dissertation, thought that we might obtain some clarification from the density of the aerolith. Matter must indeed be less condensed on Mars, and much more so on the Moon; that might be a very simple way of removing our satellite from the debate.

  “I have, with the collaboration of Mr. Siemann, determined the density of several samples, including tha
t of the silver found in the bolide. The figures are very similar to those we obtain with respect to terrestrial metals and minerals, but a little lower. It is as well to add, however, that the proportional density of these materials ought to be less than it is in reality; at any rate, it is too similar to permit the attribution of their origin to our satellite; the density of lunar rocks must be significantly lower, and, for reasons that Mr. Greenwight has argued very well, I have no hesitation in to remove the Moon from the debate.”

  Mr. Greenwight: “I hope I might be permitted to thank Mr. Liesse for his support, and to remark to the assembly that, far from surprising me, the discordances observed by my savant colleague regarding the density of the aerolith’s substance only serve to reaffirm my first opinion. Indeed, the density of these materials was, at the time of their fall, lower than those of similar terrestrial substances, but they have crossed space, becoming more condensed in the process, then aggregated in obedience to new terrestrial forces, then further condensed by the cooling that has occurred between their arrival here and the present time. Why should it be surprising that their density has been relatively increased? The contrary would be more difficult to explain. What I wanted most of all, in asking Mr. Liesse to determine the density, was to remove the Moon from the question. Now, the question raised by Mr. Stek appears to me to be conclusively settled. The aerolith and its contents can only have descended, in theory, from the planet Mars; what remains to be explained is how. It is Mr. Owerght who wanted to take responsibility for this point and will, I am sure, clarify it with his usual talent.”