[Illustration: CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART Fifth Series ESTABLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, 1832 CONDUCTED BY R. CHAMBERS (SECUNDUS) NO. 128.—VOL. III. SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1886. PRICE 1½_d._] LIFE IN MARS. The question as to the habitability of other worlds than ours has always been a very fascinating one, and, indeed, it is not surprising that it is so; for since the days when the earth was debased from her proud position as centre of the universe, and was assigned her proper place among the planets, there seemed to be no particular reason why she alone should produce life, and why other planets, apparently as suitable for this purpose as she is, should wander uninhabited through space. Up to the present time, it must be confessed, we have met with nothing but disappointment in this branch of inquiry; for not only have we not detected living creatures on any other member of the solar system, but, with the single exception we are considering, there is apparently no other body whose surface is under conditions which would lead us to suppose that it might support life, or at least life in any form with which we are acquainted. It is of course useless to argue about the possibility of life under entirely different conditions; for instance, there might be some form of life on the sun; we can only say that it would be so different from what we know as life, that the term would be hardly applicable; and whether it is likely to exist or not, is a question which our limited experience does not allow us to answer one way or the other. The moon, again, may be the home of living creatures; but they must be so constituted as to exist without air of any sort, which is rather contrary to our notions of life.