Mars and Its Canals

Rightly viewed, no more subtle tribute could be paid to the remarkable character of the phenomenon of gemination than the scepticism with which it was immediately received and w...

So far in our account of the phenomena we have regarded the lines, the spots, and everything that is theirs solely from the point of view of their appearance at any one time. In...

That Mars is inhabited by beings of some sort or other we may consider as certain as it is uncertain what those beings may be. The theory of the existence of intelligent life on...

Polar expeditions exert an extreme attraction on certain minds, perhaps because they combine the maximum of hardship with the minimum of headway. Inconclusiveness certainly enab...

With the vanishing of its seas we get for the first time solid ground on which to build our Martian physiography. The change in _venue_ from oceans to land has produced a comple...

Next to be caught of the details of this most curious network that meshes the surface of Mars was a set of phenomena stranger even than the lines; to wit, dark round dots standi...

In gazing at the successive phases presented by the polar caps as their annual history unrolls itself to view, beginning with vast white cloaks that in winter hide so effectivel...

Assured by physical properties that our visual appearances are quite capable of being what they seem we pass to the phenomena of the cap itself. Like as are the polar caps of th...

Study of the fundamental features of Martian topography has disclosed, as we have seen, the existence of vegetation on the planet as the only rational explanation of the dark ma...

In 1879, while Schiaparelli was engaged in scrutinizing the strange _canali_ he had discovered on the planet the opposition before, he was suddenly surprised to mark one of them...

In all ways but one our scrutiny of the planet is confined to such view as we might get of it from the car of a balloon poised above it in space; from which disadvantage-point w...

With Mars discovery has from the start waited on apparent disk. To this end every optical advance has contributed from the time of Galileo’s opera-glass to the present day. For...

From the detection of the main markings that diversify the surface of Mars we now pass to a discovery of so unprecedented a character that the scientific world was at first loat...

If, now, we review with the mind’s eye the several features of Mars which we have surveyed with the bodily one, we shall be surprised to find to what they commit us. Suggestive...

Connected with the conduct of the canals is a phenomenon, examples of which were early noted in a general way by Schiaparelli and later, but of which the full import and exhibit...

Descending now equatorwards from the polar regions, and their in part paleocrystic, in part periodic, coating of ice, we come out upon the general uncovered expanse of the plane...

That the canals and oases are of artificial origin is thus suggested by their very look; when we come to go further and inquire into what may be their office in the planet’s eco...

As rational science does not rest content with raw results, it now becomes obligatory, by marshaling the facts to suitable discussion, to seek to find out what they mean. Now, s...

Both for their evidence and their extent the great ochre stretches of the disk claim attention first. Largely unchangeable, these show essentially the same day after day and fro...

From time immemorial travel and discovery have called with strange insistence to him who, wondering on the world, felt adventure in his veins. The leaving familiar sights and fa...

In addition to the polar caps proper and to the subsidiary polar patches that often in late summer flank them round about, other white spots may from time to time be seen upon t...

Almost as soon as magnification gives Mars a disk that disk shows markings, white spots crowning a globe spread with blue-green patches on an orange ground. The smallest telesco...

Since closer acquaintance takes from the _maria_ their character of seas, we are led to inquire again into their constitution. Now, when we set ourselves to consider to what suc...

Much more stands beyond. For, outdoing in suggestiveness the individual traits of the lines, is the relation shown by them to one another. It is the communal characteristics of...

As the character of the travel is distinctive, so the outcome of the voyage is unique. If he choose his departure-point aright, the observer will be vouchsafed an experience wit...

Photography holds to-day a place of publicity in the exposition of the stars. Directed by Draper to the heavens thirty-four years ago, the camera recorded then the first picture...

As an interesting instance of the law of development we may take the career of the Brontes during this same Martian year; the Brontes witnessing individually to the same evoluti...

Functionally related to the canal system, and yet in look and location contrasted with its other details, is a further set of markings, detected by me in 1894, and reseen at sub...

Of the existence of animal life upon a far planet any evidence must, of necessity, assume a different guise from what its flora would present. Plant life should be, as on Mars w...

Seventeen years after the recognition of the canals in the light regions occurred another important event, the discovery of a similar set in the dark ones. The detection of thes...

Last in time but not least in importance of the details of canal development to be detected is one that connects these strange features directly with the melting of the polar ca...

Subject to change also are the oases; and in the same manner apparently as the canals. They grow less evident at a like season of the Martian year. They do this seemingly by dec...

EXPLANATION OF THE TABLES OF THE APPENDIX.—I. Constants and Formulæ in Frequent Use. II. Tables Relating to Time and Arguments for Star Reductions. III. Centennial Rates of the...

of the First Order. II. Rigorous Reduction for Close Polar Stars. III. Practical Methods of Reduction. IV. Construction of Tables of the Apparent Places of Fundamental Stars. No...