water and continents on Mars

Going through some recent antiques I acquired, I was flipping through a magazine from February 1890, named Demorest's Family Magazine. It is mostly a fashion type magazine. What caught my attention was an article named A Voyage Through Space. I was sort of curious what they thought back then about space and read through it.

I thought it was kinda funny about the planet Venus. They mention that the ancient people knew it as "Dawnbringer" (in Latin, Lucifer). Is that why women are suppose to be from Venus?

Anyway, I got on to the information about Mars. They mention with the telescopes they have (during the late 1800's), Mars was the planet they had the most detailed information about its surface.

I am going to highlight some of the interesting things it says in this article about Mars:

They say, besides the moon, Mars is the only heavenly body that the surface has been mapped.

Surface is covered with lighter and darker spots, some spots are unchanging, and are solid and definitely parts of Mar's surface. Others alter and vary considerably and therefore must be the nature of clouds.

We can with safety aver that Mars, like earth, contains seas, continents, and islands, as well as an atmosphere containing water vapor in the shape of clouds.

The changes of seasons, and especially the variableness of the snow and ice at the poles of Mars, can be watched by astronomers.

At both poles of the planet are two white, shining spots of which usually only one is visible at a time. These poles do change with the seasons. (winter they grow bigger, summer they melt and get smaller)

Thus, we know there is snow and ice on Mars and clouds arise from it clearly seen.

It has long been known that continents, seas,and rivers compose Mar's surface.

On Mars, there are many conditions for life as we know it, and we have therefore some reason to suppose that there are beings similar to ourselves.

In last few years, Italian astronomer Schiaparelli...provided a drawing of Mar's surface showing: dark bodies of water, and brighter continents.

On Mars, continents are separated by narrow bodies of water.

A strange discovery by Schiaparelli shows the water canals double...each canal is precisely similar to each other...running parallel. This is seen depending on the season and remains an enigma.



That is about it in this article.

Some interesting stuff I thought from 1890....much of which I have not heard anything about in today's age.