CHAPTER II.
POPULATION CENTERS, TEMPERATURE, CLIMATE
Although Mars is little more than half as large as your Earth,
its diameter being 4,200 miles, it contains a larger area of
habitable land than the latter, its surface area being
approximately 212,000,000 square miles as against 51,000,000
miles for your Earth. Hence our globe supports a larger
population about 13,160,000,000 people. Your population is in
the neighborhood of 1,645,000,000. Your land area is
161,000,000 square miles less than the land area of Mars. This
is for the reason that your oceans occupy a vast surface of your
Earth, and Mars has no oceans, as these dried up ages ago.
Consequently almost the entire surface of our planet (with
exception of some small areas covered with swamps, remnants of
ancient seas and oceans, and portions of the extreme Northerly
and Southerly Polar caps) is utilized by the Martian inhabitants.
Our planet is gridironed with canals, many hundreds of the main
ones being observable through your telescopes, and the art of
intensive farming is practised by us to a degree of perfection
never dreamed of by the dwellers of your Earth.
Our winters, even in the Equatorial regions are severe, the
temperatures at times descending to as low as 80 degrees below
zero.
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