Nov. 9, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



481 



MARS AND ITS "CANALS." 



{Concluded from page 453.) 



WE have now to search for a rational explanation ot 

 the phenomena described and figured. Not a 

 few authorities, or at least authors, consider the canals 

 as artificial. In their opinion these canals are immense 

 engineering operations which have been executed by the 





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Fig. 4. — Mars as it appeared on June 12TH, 1888. 

 (After Perrotin.) 



inhabitants of Mars. All these canals, it will be per- 

 ceived, form direct communication in a straight line 

 between the seas, or between seas and other canals. 



Fig. 6.— Sketch of Mars as it appeared on May 

 8th, 1888. (After Perrotin.) 



None of them ever come to an end in the interior of a 

 continent. Mars has for some years accustomed us to 

 such extraordinary surprises that we do not protest 

 against such an hypothesis, improbable as it may seem. 

 For others the canals are gigantic rivers, but rectilineal 

 rivers, passing invariably from sea to sea or from one 

 watercourse to another, and never taking their rise in 



the continents ! Men of science in our day are chary of 

 using the word impossible, but here it almost appears justi- 

 fied. The late Proctor thought that the twin canals might 

 be a phenomenon of diffraction, produced when fogs are 

 suspended above the beds of the rivers of Mars. But 

 this hypothesis leaves unexplained the difficulty of recti- 

 linear rivers passing through the continents from sea to 

 sea ! 



Fig. 5.— Mars as it appeared on June 4TH, 1888. 

 (After Perrotin.) 



M. Fizeau regards these canals as colossal crevasses, or 

 chinks, in the glaciers of the planet. For him a glacial 

 epoch reigns over the whole surface of the planet. The 

 illustrious physicist has been led to this hypothesis by 

 the presence of a dark line in the polar cap, as we have 



Fig. 7. — Sketch of Mars as it appeared on May 

 2 ist, 1886. (After Perrotin.) 



mentioned above. This canal seems to him to be a 

 crevasse, such as we find in terrestrial glaciers ; and as this 

 fissure seems analogous to the other canals, these also 

 would be fissures in an immense glacier. 



M. Flammarion- has shown various objections to the 

 hypothesis of Fizeau. We believe we may conclude 

 with him, from the melting of the snows at the poles, 



