Free We Are the Children of the Stars by Otto O. Binder

far denied.
    Let us put it that the last word has not yet been said on whether the canals of Mars are myth or reality.
    Canals aside, the Martian pictures that came back from the orbiters in 1971 and 1972 showed other gross features that stood out with sharp clarity. If the pictures did not show canals as such, they did show many signs of abundance of water on Mars in ages past, and other clues that indicate water may still exist on Mars today in free form, in greater quantities than expected.
    Erosion, for instance. The photos clearly show faults, ridges, and sand dunes, all definite signs of erosion by water , nothing else. 7 And such erosion signs could not all freeze into eternal surface features lasting for millions of years. Some of them must be recent erosion effects, in line with the current dynamic model of Martian meteorology.
    Volcanic structures on Mars, and striated sediment layers, also proclaim the past or present action of water in considerable quantities – enough, in fact, to discard the old bone-dry Mars theory (as we discarded the dust-covered-moon theory after our astronauts landed there).
    That Mars once had extensive water-resources is highlighted by a report from the U.S. Geological Survey after their experts pored over the Mariner photos from Mars. 8
    “All along the northern edge of the high plateau,” says [Harold] Masursky, “one can see stream channels that vary in size from very small to a kilometer in width and thousands of kilometers in length. They are highly braided tributaries. These sinuous channels [sic!] could be the result of ubiquitous water, or a fantastic series of volcanic channels that we do not understand.”
    Another great puzzle in Martian topography is the “canyonlands” bordering the Nix Olympica region in the planet's east. 9 “The canyonlands are a real puzzler,” reports Masursky. “Theyseem to be a series of innumerable fissures, some of which may represent cracking of the crust by itself.” But, he goes on, “Something else has gone on there. What that something is, is the biggest mystery at the moment.”
    The report goes on to give another hypothesis, that the precession cycle of the Martian poles might mean that alternately, every 50,000 years, one pole gains a greater ice cap than the other. “In between these periods, weather on Mars would be unstable, producing lots of rain.” 10
    Interesting, indeed, for a planet supposedly as arid as a desert! Furthermore, “water may be trapped and frozen in the form of permafrost and released episodically into the atmosphere.”
    A space scientist who has thoroughly studied the Mars-Mariner photos also states he believes that water-ice (as distinguished from frozen carbon dioxide) is present as tiny crystals in two other areas – in the clouds that appear in the afternoon, and in two higher layers of haze (thin clouds) over the planet. 11
    Each report seems to find more evidence of water or ice or water vapor on the Red Planet.
    Scientists are also baffled by the enormous system of rills (cracks) existing elsewhere on Mars. They are parallel fissures (many drawings of Martian canals show them as two parallels! ) extending more than 1,800 kilometers and up to 1.6 kilometers wide. These too could be evidence of long-enduring action by one-time bodies of water in the ancient past of Mars.
    Thus, even if our camera-eye space vehicles saw no canals, they did even better and showed that Mars was once well-watered and even today may exhibit actual small streams as the polar icecaps melt – when more and better photos are obtained. And the possibility of life on Mars has thus been enhanced a hundredfold, canals or no canals.
    Scientists who disbelieved in Martian life have become very quiet.

4
Fossil Clues
    A S SOME WIT in anthropology has said – down from the trees but not out of the woods, bipedal mankind must go back to his prehistoric ancestors for knowledge about his origins.
    Anthropology is the study of mankind