“The Planet of War”

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17513/17513-h/17513-h.htm

The land regions of Mars can be distinguished from the seas by their ruddy color, the seas being greenish. But here, perhaps, you will be disposed to ask how astronomers can be sure that the greenish regions are seas, the ruddy regions land, the white spots either snow or cloud. Might not materials altogether unlike any we are acquainted with exist upon that remote planet?

The spectroscope answers this question in the clearest way. You may remember what I told you in October, 1876, about Venus, how astronomers have learned that the vapor of water exists in her atmosphere. The same method has been applied, even more satisfactorily, to the planet of war, and it has been found that he also has his atmosphere at times laden with moisture. This being so, it is clear we have not to do with a planet made of materials utterly unlike those forming our earth. To suppose so, when we find that the air of Mars, formed like our own (for if it contained other gases the spectroscope would tell us), contains often large quantities of the vapor of water, would be as absurd as to believe in the green cheese theory of the moon, or in another equally preposterous, advanced lately by an English artist — Mr. J.T. Brett — to the effect that the atmosphere of Venus is formed of glass.

— Richard A. Proctor, St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, November 1877

| History · Science & Math

Hemingway’s Cats

Ernest Hemingway’s former home in Key West, Fla., contains a colony of six-toed cats.

The author had a sailor’s love of polydactyl cats — their extra toes are considering good luck at sea, giving them superior abilities to climb and to hunt shipboard rodents.

So when Hemingway received a six-toed cat from a ship’s captain, he provided for its descendants in his will. There are currently about 60 cats at the Key West house, and about half of them have extra toes.

| Literature · Oddities

Toil and Trouble

Recipe for “flying ointment”:

  • 1/2 oz. soot
  • 1 oz. pork fat
  • 1 oz. hemlock
  • 1 oz. deadly nightshade
  • 1 oz. wolfsbane

Allegedly such recipes were obtained by torturing accused witches, who said they used the ointment to fly to the Sabbat. More likely the mixture induced hallucinations; maybe that amounts to the same thing.

| History

Science Marches On

Thinking they had found a Viking settlement, a team of experts spent months in 2003 excavating a platform of slabs in Marion Garry’s garden in Fife, Scotland.

They finally realized it was a patio from the 1940s.

Archaeologist Douglas Speirs admitted to ignoring an old television remote found during the dig.

“Looking back now,” he said, “that probably wasn’t the best approach.”

| Science & Math

Tall Tale

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Urville-Patagonians3.jpg

When Magellan reached Argentina in 1519, he was in for a shock:

One day we suddenly saw a naked man of giant stature on the shore of the port, dancing, singing, and throwing dust on his head. The captain-general sent one of our men to the giant so that he might perform the same actions as a sign of peace. … He was so tall that we reached only to his waist, and he was well proportioned …

The navigator’s account says the man was “10 spans high,” which would be 7 foot 6; later European explorers reported natives up to 15 feet tall.

These legends persisted for 250 years before they were debunked, and they left one permanent legacy: Patagonia means “land of the big feet.”

| History