President s address. cvu. 



an expedition sent thence to the Andes, showing with an extra- 

 ordinary amount of definition the markings on the planet, 

 especially the snowcaps at the poles and the so-called canals 

 and oases as they went through their different phases of gradual 

 formation and decrease. The canals had been thus shown 

 less clearly in 1905, but the present photographs prove the 

 correctness of observations made with the eye by showing certain 

 canals double. Professor Lowell considers that the planet is at 

 present the abode of intelligent constructive life, and that no 

 other supposition is consonant with all the facts observed. The 

 construction of the canals by intelligent beings is disputed, 

 amongst others, by Dr. A. R. Wallace, who propounds as an 

 alternative cause a highly complicated meteoritic theor}'. He 

 has also endeavoured to prove that the probabilities are enor- 

 mously against any other planet in the universe than our earth 

 being inhabited. Hitherto spectroscopic observation has failed 

 to show the existence of water in Mars, but this seems now to 

 have been proved to be present, thus overcoming one objection 

 to its habitability. It had been suggested that the so-called 

 snowcaps might represent some other substance. On October 

 3rd last the earth passed through the plane of Saturn's rings, so 

 that they were rendered invisible ; that is to say, they were seen 

 exactly edgewise, and the thin edge they presented was too 

 narrow to be visible in a telescope. Numerous observations of 

 the rings have been made Avhen near this condition, including 

 one of a supposed new external ring, but its existence requires 

 confirmation. Three asteroids discovered close to Jupiter 

 suggest possibilities of a group connected with the larger planet, 

 but it remains a question for the future to determine. One of 

 these or a similar body, discovered in January last, is probably an 

 eighth satellite to Jupiter, but further observations are necessary 

 to make this interesting probability a certainty. The enormous 

 forces at work in the sun are well illustrated by a solar 

 prominence which was obser\-ed on November 15th last to 

 shoot up a distance of 140,000 miles in 14 minutes, or 167 miles 

 in a second. We have nothing on the earth to compare to it, 



