190 The Planet Mars : a Fragment. 



spot I have marked A, and which usually appeared like a great 

 half-opened fan of darkness, is evidently the same with that in 

 Beer and Madler, intervening between long. 30° and 90° ; the 

 long canal B is easily identified ; my C corresponds with their 

 sloping spot between 90° and 12(T ; D agrees still better, E 

 forming, I believe, the end of their long leech-shaped spot; 

 F may be recognized between their 30° and 90°, in lat. 30° to 

 60° ; and other less certain correspondences may be traced or 

 fancied. On the whole, we may conclude that the general 

 permanency of the dark markings may be considered as satis- 

 factorily established merely from these two sets of observations, 

 even if De la Rue and Jacob's drawings did not, in part, lend 

 their powerful aid. But though this independently-formed 

 inference appears satisfactory, I have the pleasure of knowing 

 that it has also been deduced by Secchi, with the great achro- 

 matic at Rome, and by our own countryman, Mr. Lockyer, who 

 bears most honourable testimony to the accuracy of Beer and 

 Madler.* Whether, therefore, we are correct in supposing that 

 the globe of Mars is occupied by land and water like our own, 

 which is certainly very possible, or whether the difference of 

 aspect is due to materials which only bear a certain analogy to 

 them — for which belief, too, reasons might be adduced — we 

 may consider the fact of a distribution of his surface into two 

 permanent divisions as sufficiently ascertained. 



Nevertheless, with this general resemblance there are 

 tokens of special differences far too wide to be comprehended 

 in any fair margin of allowance for terrestrial impediments and 

 difficulties. The weather was usually so unfavourable that I 

 seldom saw as well as the defining power of my instrument 

 would warrant ; and other eyes and hands might have other- 

 wise viewed and represented what I did see. Still, mere in- 

 spection will make discrepancies evident which must have had 

 their origin beyond our own atmosphere, and which no amount 

 of blundering on the part of any one will serve to explain. 

 J [ere, then, we seem to find indications, not to be mistaken, of 

 an atmosphere surrounding Mars, charged with vapours as 

 dense and agitated by currents at least as extensivo and as 

 rapid as our own. 



This — the second point to which my attention had been 



* Tho very beautiful series of drawings by this observer, exhibited at the last 

 meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, and destined for publication in its 

 Mi moirs, while they fully corroborate my own in a general sense, and completo 

 their deficiencies, are much superior in that minuteness of detail into which u 

 6-inch object-glass would enable him t<> penetrate further tlmn mysalfi A novice 

 might perhaps be surprised at this assertion j l>m half an inch in the diameter of 

 on object-glass is of material importance — the brightness <>f the image varying 

 directly as the tqva/n of the linear aperture. Mr. Lockyer s glass possesses there- 

 fore one-sixth more light than mine. 



