THE PLANET MARS: IS IT INHABITED? 123 



the soil and detritus ever being carried down from mountains and 

 lowlands by means of streams and rivers. The same story of 

 denudation and wearing down, we now have reason to believe, 

 was long ago enacted upon Mars, with the ultimate result, as 

 seemingly proved by Mr. Lowell (discussed and allowed^ also, from 

 a geological point of view, by Mr. P. F. Kendal, F.G.S., in an 

 illustrated lecture before the members of the Leeds Astronomical 

 Society last year), that the surface of Mars is now nearly level, 

 its oceans having retired into the interior ; and yet not alto- 

 gether so, for the saturated, though now extremely attenuated, 

 atmosphere of the planet still continues its circuit, depositing 

 its watery treasure in the form of snow or hoar frost, during the 

 long polar nights. With returning spring, these snows are observed 

 to melt ; and the water, which appears in the telescope of a deep 

 blue colour, to collect as a ringed sea, three hundred and fifty 

 miles wide, surrounding each pole. 



That Mars is not exactly level, however, but has hills, at any 

 rate, near the South Pole, more or less perpendicular, is shown by 

 Mr. Lowell's observation on June 7th, 1894, about one hundred 

 and thirty-five days before opposition. Suddenly, two points like 

 stars flashed out in the midst of the polar cap. Dazzlingly white 

 on the snowy background, they shone for a few moments and then 

 slowly disappeared. These afterwards proved to be gleams of 

 Sunlight, reflected from steep ice slopes, flashed earthward, just as 

 in a railway train we sometimes see the light of the Sun reflected 

 towards us for some moments from a distant glass conservatory. 

 As this ice slope was near the pole, answering to Victoria Land 

 near our South Pole, the Sun must have appeared near the horizon, 

 from those shining points on Mars. The same eminences were 

 afterwards observed as ice or snow patches amid dark surround- 

 ings, suggesting a colder elevation, like the snow on our hills, 

 which remains days, sometimes weeks, after the snow in the sur- 

 rounding valleys has melted. It turned out that these ice flash- 

 lights had been seen in 1846 and 1877 ; also two others in addition. 

 In connection with these, many will recall the supposed light- 

 signals from Mars, which gave rise to so much speculation at the 

 time. Martian astronomers may possibly be familiar with similar 

 Sunlight reflections from our lofty regions of eternal snow and ice. 



