1903.1 LOWELL---THE CARTOUCHES OF MARS. 365 
This idea is strengthened by another circumstance connected 
with the development exhibited by the table. The progress of the 
minima, which betoken the later and later starting of the quicken- 
ing down the disk, does not stop at the equator, but advances with 
fine indifference to that natural limit into the planet’s other hemi- 
sphere. Now there the physical conditions to affect it are the 
precise opposite of what they were in the first ornorthern one. If, 
therefore, it were due to such cause the action should there be 
reversed. That it is not shows that we are here face to face with a 
phenomenon not simply inexplicable on natural laws but abso- 
lutely antagonistic to them. ° 
The study here presented leads, then, to three conclusions: (1) 
The ‘‘canals’’ develop down the disk from material supplied by 
the melting of the polar cap; the development proceeding across 
the equator into the planet’s other hemisphere. (2) The canals 
are from their behavior inferably vegetal and (3) of artificial 
origin. 
Boston, December 4, 1903. 
