Spiritual enfoldment of its
inhabitants is proportionately advanced.

As the Divine Plan is universal in its scope the physical
characteristics of Mars, compared to your Earth are, in a general way,
the same, with the exceptions shown later in this book.

The inhabitants of Mars enjoy a blue sky, mountains, hills, rocks and
dells, clouds, beautiful sunsets, and in fact most of the physical
phenomena witnessed by the dwellers of your Earth.

The Martians live and have their being just as your people do, but they
are surrounded by a different spiritual and a modified physical
environment. They take pleasure in music, art and the study of
physical science, but with this difference: the spiritual growth and
enfoldment of the individual is considered as most important, and all
material advancement as only an aid to ultimate ends.

With main points in view the reader can now readily comprehend the real
Martian character, although it may be a disappointment to some who have
imagined the inhabitants of Mars as physically different from
themselves; or perhaps, as semi-spiritual entities, who have possibly
been transplanted from other worlds to undergo a sort of probationary
life amid a Paradise of beautiful surroundings and things.

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,