THE STRANGE MARKINGS ON MARS. 49 



quent oppositions. In 1879 Schiaparelli noticed that the canal 

 which he calls Nilus (see his map) was double, or consisted of 

 two streaks running side by side, and perfectly parallel. This 

 observation was made shortly after the time of the vernal equinox 

 on Mars. 



" These two regular, equal, and parallel lines," he says, " I con- 

 fess profoundly surprised me, all the more because a few days 

 before, the 23d and 24th of December, I had carefully examined 

 that same region without discovering anything of the kind. I 

 awaited with curiosity the return of the planet in 1881 in order to 

 see if an analogous phenomenon would present itself in the same 

 place, and I saw the same thing reappear on the 11th of January, 

 1882, one month after the vernal equinox of the planet, which had 

 occurred on the 8th of December, 1881. The duplication was still 

 plainer at the end of February. At this same date, the 11th of 

 January, another duplication had already been produced, that of 

 the middle section of the canal of the Cyclops at the edge of Elys- 

 ium (see map). Greater still was my astonishment when, on 

 the 19th of January, I saw the canal Jamuna, which was then 

 in the center of the disk, composed very plainly of two parallel 

 straight lines traversing the space which separates the Niliacus 

 Lacus from the Auroras Sinus. At first I thought it was an illu- 

 sion caused by fatigue of the eye and by some new kind of stra- 

 bismus ; but there was no resisting the evidence. From the 19th 

 of January I simply went from surprise to surprise ; the Orontes, 

 the Euphrates, the Phison, the Ganges, and most of the other 

 canals showed themselves very clearly, and indubitably divided 

 in two." 



It is not a matter for surprise that this announcement of Schia- 

 parelli's, coming upon the heels of his original discovery of the 

 canals as single lines, which in itself was sufficiently remarkable, 

 caused still greater doubt to be entertained of the correctness of 

 his observations. It seemed to many easier to believe that a dis- 

 tinguished astronomer and practiced telescopist had been misled 

 by some deception of the eyes, some optical trick of his instru- 

 ment or of the atmosphere, than that the globe of Mars was cov- 

 ered, over the larger part of its surface, with a network of lines, 

 apparently connected with the water-system of the planet, and 

 that, at certain times, these lines, canals, or water-courses, or 

 whatever they might be, were doubled up throughout their whole 

 extent. Even the positive assurance of the celebrated astronomer, 

 "I am absolutely certain of what I have observed," could not 

 banish all doubt. The manner in which the doubling of the canals 

 was brought about seemed most mysterious, and added to the 

 apparently dubious character of the whole occurrence. Schia- 

 parelli declared that sometimes he was able to perceive precur- 



