358 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 89. 



dewed by Mr. Henry W. Sage in Cornell Uni- 

 versity. 



Dr. Fbanz Hofmeistbr, professor of phar- 

 macology at Prague, known for his researches 

 in physiological chemistry, has been called to 

 the chair at Strasburg, vacant by the death of 

 the late Prof. Hoppe-Segler. 



Prof. F. F. Jerisman has resigned the chair 

 of hygiene in the University of Moscow. 



DISCUSSION AND G0BBE8P0NDENCE. 

 THE LICK REVIEW OF 'MARS.' 



Having sought to throw discredit on Mr. 

 Lowell's work, almost before it was begun, 

 some two years ago, the Lick Observatory now 

 renews the attack in Prof. Campbell's review of 

 Mr. Lowell's book. Formerly it decried the 

 work because the theories upon which it was 

 started were too original ; now it attempts to 

 seize the credit of the results and calls the the- 

 ories ' mostly old. ' Such a remarkable act of 

 appropriation cannot be allowed to pass un- 

 noticed. 



In order to unmask at once the character of 

 the article, we will take first the two points in 

 which the writer sums himself up. 



1. Prof. Campbell asserts that of the two 

 leading faults of the book, one is : ' that there 

 should be so many evidences of apparent lack of 

 familiarity with the literature of the subject ' on 

 Mr. Lowell's part; and he introduces, quotations 

 at great length from a translation by Prof. W. 

 H. Pickering, of Schiaparelli's work, to which 

 translation he professes his obligation. Of this 

 it is only necessary for us to say that the trans- 

 lation in question was made at the Lowell Ob- 

 servatory, a fact which Prof Campbell neglects 

 to mention, although the fact was so printed on 

 the paper from which he quotes. We are wil- 

 ling to have the Lick indebted to us for its 

 knowledge of Schiaparelli's work, but it must 

 not suppose us ignorant of our own translation 

 to which its knowledge is due. As the public 

 could not have been expected to know whose 

 the translation was, while we, on the other 

 hand, covild not have failed to do so, we are in 

 doubt whether to wonder most at the simplicity 

 or the bare-facedness of such a proceeding. 



2. The writer asserts, as the other fault, that 



the observations were not continued long 

 enough to support the conclusion of seasonal 

 changes on the planet. If he will read again our 

 translation of Schiaparelli he will find that that 

 eminent observer has noticed seasonal changes 

 for years and that what our observations dis- 

 closed was not only the fact of changes, which 

 they corroborated, but the character of the 

 changes and the process of their development, 

 thus furnishing an important link in the chain 

 of evidence for Mr. Lowell's theory. 



3. With regard to the literature of Mars con- 

 tributed by the Lick and referred to in the arti- 

 cle the succeeding points will show whether 

 that literature was unknown to Mr. Lowell or 

 whether its unimportance made mention of it 

 unnecessary. 



4. We will begin with the Lick attempt to 

 claim the discovery of canals in the dark re- 

 gions for Prof. Schaeberle in 1892, because the 

 latter saw ' streaks ' there then. Not only did 

 Prof. W. H. Pickering and Mr. Douglass dis- 

 cover these same ' streaks ' at Arequipa, of 

 which fact the writer of the article is apparently 

 ignorant, but Mr. Douglass' discovery, at Flag- 

 staff, in 1894, was not of ' streaks,' but of ca- 

 nals, in the technical sense in which that word 

 is used for Mars ; and it is to the detection of these 

 ' canal ' peculiarities that the importance of the 

 discovery is due, since it is these peculiarities 

 that impart an artificial appearance to the en- 

 tire system of canals. The diflference between 

 ' streaks ' and ' canals ' in the dark regions is 

 of exactly the same kind as the difference be- 

 tween the streaks seen in the light areas by 

 Madler, Dawes, Kaiser and others, prior to 

 Schiaparelli's discovery of them as 'canals.' 



5. The North Polar Sea was seen by Schi- 

 aparelli ; the South Polar Sea has been drawn 

 by many previous observers, but not recognized 

 as such. Its limits and the proof of its charac- 

 ter are due to Prof. Pickering's polariscope ob- 

 servations at this observatory. Its function in 

 the climatology of Mars was first thoroughly 

 discussed by Mr. Lowell in his book, and this 

 is the precise meaning of his words, ' never dis- 

 tinctly noted or commented on before.' 



6. The Lick article asserts that the first irreg- 

 ularity on the terminator was seen at the Lick 

 Observatory, in 1890, but it omits to mention 



