84 



WALTEIJ MAUXDEE. F.E.A.S., ON THE 



much richer iu detail than any that had preceded it, and from 

 his skill expt^rience and training as an artist he reproduced the 

 api:»ear"ance of the planet with a fidelity that had never been 

 equalled before and has not been sur^passed since. At this time 

 it was generally assumed that Mars was a miniature of our own 

 world. The brighter districts of its surface were supposed to 

 be continents, the darker, seas. As Sir William Herschel 

 hatl already pointed out, long before, the little world exidently 

 had its seasons, its axis being inclined to the plane of its orbit 

 at much the same angle as is the case with the earth : it had its 

 polar caps, presumably of ice and snow ; there were occasional 

 rraces of cloud ; its day was but very little longer than that of 

 the earth; and the only important diflerence seemed to l»e that 

 it had a longer year, and was a little further off the sun. But 

 the general conclusion was that it was so like the earth in its 

 general conditions that we had practically found out all that 

 zhere was to know : all that seemed to be reserved for future 

 research was that a few minor details of the surface might be 

 tilled in as the power of our telescopes was increased. 



But fortunately for progress this sense of satisfaction was 

 rudely distuj'bed As Mars, in its progress roimd the sun, 

 receded from the earth, or rather as the earth moved away from 

 it, the astronomers who had observed so diligently during 

 the autumn of 1877 turned then* attention to other objects, but 

 one of them, Scliiaparelli, the most distinguished astronomer on 

 the continent of Europe, still continued to watch the planet, 

 and as the result of his labours he published some months later 

 the first of a magnificent series of Memoirs, bringing to light 

 what appeared to be a new featm*e. His drawings not only 

 showed the lands " and " seas," that is to say the bright and 

 dark areas, that Green and liis predecessors had drawn, but also 

 a number of fine, narrow, dark lines, crossing the ' lands " in 

 every direction. These naiTow lines are tlie markings which 

 have been so celebrated, I might say so notorious, as the " canals 

 of Man's." The English word ''canal" gives the idea of :»n 

 artificial watercoiu'se, an idea which Schiaparelli himself had 

 no intention of creating : he had called them ca/iali or " channels." 

 and it is quite possible that the controversy as to their nature, 

 which has been carried on for so many years, would never liave 

 arisen but for the unfortunate mistranslation into English of the 

 caivali as " canals.'* 



Yet the controversy itself has not been unfortunate, for it has 

 focussed attention upon Mars in a way that perhaps nothing 

 else could have done, and since 1877 the most powerful telescopes 



