THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 31 



larly planned and looking marvellously like a lady's silk hand- 

 kerchief. Down to date we have accurate descriptions and 

 names of 2SS features of the areography of Mars. For nine 

 years he labored alone, having his visions all to himself. It 

 was not till iSS6 that any one but he saw the canals. In April 

 of that year Persotin, of Nice, first did so, when the great Nice 

 telescope of 29 inch aperture was set up. But it ^vas some 

 time before, even with this large glass, they could be discovered. 

 But suddenly Persotin discovered one of them called the Phison. 

 His assistant, M. Thollon, saw it immediately afterwards. 

 Afterwards they managed to make out several others, some 

 single, some double, substantially as Schiaparelli had drawn 

 them. Since then other observers have continued to detect 

 them, the nvimber increasing every opposition, but even now 

 these fortunate observers are less in number than twenty, and 

 the reason of this is that many of the observatories are not 

 situated under the best atmospheric conditions. It seems to be 

 altogether a question of a glass of moderate power and very 

 clear, and what is most important of all, a very steady air. 



To all this Mr. Lowell, of Flagstaff Observatory, in Ari- 

 zona territory, has added very much. He records that in the 

 early morning of the 7th of June, 1S94, he saw two brilliant 

 star points suddenly flash out from the Polarice cap on Mars 

 and soon die away. Just as on earth, travelling in a road at 

 sunset we may see a svnibeam flash back by reflection from a 

 window in a house on some adjoining field. And so some 

 stray sunbeam was flashed back from some crest of ice on the 

 South Polar cap as the planet turned on its axis. Remember 

 that flash came nearly 200,000,000 miles and took nine minutes 

 to cross the gulf and it struck the eye of one solitary observer 

 that happened to be watching from that observatory overlook- 

 ing a deep canyon in Arizona on that early June morning. 

 And remember, too, that though we see the south pole of Mars 

 with its ice cap across a vast gulf of space, no human eye has 

 ever seen our own south pole and that only a few hundred miles 

 away. Mr. Lowell's explanation of the bright flashes is quite 

 reasonable, but the enterprising and highly ingenious profession- 



