"Edmond Hamilton - Captain Future's Worlds of Tomorrow 05 - Mars" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hamilton Edmond)

ARS, the third planet from the Sun, is the oldest
world in the whole System. The crimson sphere has
an ancient history that antedates that of any of the other
planets.
M
Scientists agree that human civilization rose on Mars
long before it did so on any of the other worlds. Planetary
archaeologists calculate the date of the first appearance of
real civilization on Mars as at least 290,000 B.C., reckon-
ing by Earth chronology. That date marks the beginning of
the First Dynasty -- the era of the first kings who ruled
over all the known, inhabited parts of the red planet.
Our information concerning the first five dynasties of
Martian rulers is very vague. We know that even in that
prehistoric time Mars was a drying, desert world, its life
maintained only by the periodical melting of its polar
snow-caps. Scientists speculate that the sharpening of
adverse conditions probably stimulated the first real
upburst of Martian scientific progress. That atomic power
was known by the time of the Fifth Dynasty is a fact of
which we are certain.
The Sixth Dynasty, circa 234,000 B.C., is known in
history as that of the Canal Builders. It was the great kings
of that regime who initiated and carried to completion the
vast project which doubled the habitable area of Mars by
bringing the water of the snow-caps carefully far south and
north in underground aqueducts. Even with the primitive
atomic power they possessed, the project must have been
one of Herculean undertaking.
Next followed a period of prosperity in which occurred
the most glorious epoch of Martian history -- that of the
Seventh Dynasty. Known to legend as the Great Kings,
those rulers reared titanic structures and cities whose
remnants in the desert now form ruined cities which still
awe the curious interplanetary traveler. Martian scientific
progress reached its peak during the Seventh Dynasty.
The Land of Storms
The Eighth Dynasty, of the Lesser Kings, attained a
magnificence unrivaled by previous generations. It was
during the reign of the Lesser Kings that Martian exploring
expeditions were sent to Jupiter, Saturn and other worlds
of the System. So was inaugurated the first period of
interplanetary commerce and travel. This period lasted for
a few centuries. Then, unaccountably, it faded and was
completely forgotten until the Earthmen, long later, re-
opened the space-ways.
It was in the Ninth Dynasty that disaster interrupted
Martian progress. Out of the unknown reaches of the area
in the south called the Land of Storms -- a vast region
considered impenetrable because of the terrific sandstorms