392 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



then were narrow winding streaks, hardly even roughly regular and by 

 no means such departures from plausibility as to be without the 

 scientific expurgatorial pale. Indeed to a modern reader prepared be- 

 forehand for geometric construction they will probably appear no 

 ' canals' at all. 



Certainly the price of acceptance was not a large one to pay. But 

 like that of the Sybilline books it increased with putting off. What he 

 offered the public in 1879 was much more dearly to be bought. The 

 lines were straighter, narrower and in every way less natural than they 

 had seemed two years before. They were again refused belief and on 

 seemingly better grounds. In 1881-2 they progressed still more in 

 unaccountability. They had now become regular rule and compass 

 lines as straight, as even and as precise as any draughtsman could wish 

 and quite what astronomic faith did not desire. Having thus donned 

 the character, they nevermore put it off. Their precision grew persistent 

 until finally other men began to admit what on much easier terms they 

 had earlier rejected. 



Now this curious evolution in design points to one interesting deduc- 

 tion. It shows that Schiaparelli started with no preconceived idea on 

 the subject. On the contrary it is clear that he shared to begin with 

 the' prevailing hesitancy to accept anything out of the ordinary. Nor 

 did he overcome his reluctance except as by degrees he was compelled, 

 for the canals did not change their characteristics nor could the glimpse 

 he got of them have altered as time went on, except in frequency, so 

 far as the eye itself was concerned. But the brain made different ac- 

 count of the reports as it grew familiar with the messages sent it, and 

 gradually by acquaintance learned to distinguish more particularly 

 what it saw. In other words, the geometrical character of the 

 'canals' was forced upon him by the things themselves instead of being, 

 as his critics took for granted, foisted on them by him. We have since 

 seen the regularity of the canals so undeniably that we are not now in 

 need of such inferential support to help us to the truth, but too late, as 

 it is, to be of controversial moment the deduction is none the less of 

 some historic force. 



The year 1890 brought Schiaparelli 's labors to a close; and 1S92 

 ushered in at once a new cycle of the planet's seasons and a fresh set of 

 observers on earth. In 1892 the planet was again favorably placed for 

 observation, much as it had been in 1877, and the chief observers of it 

 were W. H. Pickering at Arequipa, Peru, and Schaeberle and Barnard 

 at the Lick Observatory, California. Just as Dawes had made in some 

 sort a transition between the first period and the second, so these observ- 

 ers furnished the stepping stone from the second period to the third. 

 W. H. Pickering detected in the planet 's dark regions certain yet darker 

 ramifications which he denominated river-systems. Nearly simul- 



