strength, than his fellows upon the earth possess without being oppressed by his own weight.  In other words, as far as the force of gravity may be considered as the decisive factor, Mars could be inhabited by giants fifteen feet tall, who would be relatively just as active, and just as little impeded in their movements by the weight of their bodies, as a six-footer is upon the earth.  But they would possess far more physical strength than we do, while, in doing work, they would have much lighter materials to deal with.

Whether the theory that the canals of Mars really are canals is true or not, at any rate there can now be no doubt as to the existence of the strange lines which bear that designation.  The suggestion has been offered that their builders may no longer be in existence, Mars having already passed the point in its history where life must cease upon its surface.  This brings us to consider again the statement, made near the beginning of this chapter, that Mars is, perhaps, at a more advanced stage of development than the earth.  If we accept this view, then, provided there was originally some resemblance between Mars’s life forms and those of the earth, the inhabitants of that planet would, at every step, probably be in front of their terrestrial rivals, so that at the present time they should stand well in advance.  Mr. Lowell has, perhaps, put this view of the relative advancement in evolution of Mars and its inhabitants as picturesquely as anybody.

“In Mars,” he says, “we have before us the spectacle of a world relatively well on in years, a world much older than the earth.  To so much about his age Mars bears witness on his face.  He shows unmistakable signs of being old.  Advancing planetary years have left their mark legible there.  His continents are all smoothed down; his oceans have all dried up....  Mars being thus old himself, we know that evolution on his surface must be similarly advanced.  This only informs us of its condition relative to the planet’s capabilities.  Of its actual state our data are not definite enough to furnish much deduction.  But from the fact that our own development has been comparatively a recent thing, and that a long time would be needed to bring even Mars to his present geological condition, we may judge any life he may support to be not only relatively, but really older than our own.  From the little we can see such appears to be the case.  The evidence of handicraft, if such it be, points to a highly intelligent mind behind it.  Irrigation, unscientifically conducted, would not give us such truly wonderful mathematical fitness in the several parts to the whole as we there behold....  Quite possibly such Martian folk are possessed of inventions of which we have not dreamed, and with them electrophones and kinetoscopes are things of a bygone past, preserved with veneration in museums as relics of the clumsy contrivances of the simple childhood of the race.  Certainly what we see hints at the existence of beings who are in advance of, not behind us, in the journey of life."[3]