Mars: Drawing 1, January 30, 1899—12 hours. Drawing 2, April 22, 1903—10 hours.
λ = 301°, φ = +10°. λ = 200°, φ = +24°.
Rev. T. E. R. Phillips.
In 1877 Schiaparelli of Milan announced that he had discovered that the surface of Mars was covered with a network of lines running with perfect straightness often for hundreds of miles across the surface, and invariably connecting two of the dark areas. To these markings he gave the name of 'canali,' a word which has been responsible for a good deal of misunderstanding. Translated into our language by 'canals,' it suggested the work of intelligent beings, and imagination was allowed to run riot over the idea of a globe peopled by Martians of superhuman intelligence and vast engineering skill. The title 'canals' is still retained; but it should be noted that the term is not meant to imply artificial construction any more than the term 'rill' on the moon implies the presence of water.
At the next opposition of Mars, Schiaparelli not only rediscovered his canals, but made the astonishing announcement that many of them were double, a second streak running exactly parallel to the first at some distance from it. His observations were received with a considerable amount of doubt and hesitation. Skilled observers declared that they could see nothing in the heavens the least corresponding to the network of hard lines which the Italian observer drew across the globe of Mars; and therein to some extent they were right, for the canals are not seen with that hardness of definition with which they are sometimes represented. But, at the same time, each successive opposition has added fresh proof of the fact that Schiaparelli was essentially right in his statement of what was seen. The question of the doubling of the canals is still under dispute, and it seems probable that it is not a real objective fact existing upon the planet, but is merely an optical effect due to contrast. There can be no question, however, about the positive reality of a great number of the canals themselves; their existence is too well attested by observers of the highest skill and experience. 'There is really no doubt whatever,' says Mr. Denning, 'about the streaked or striated configuration of the Northern hemisphere of Mars. The canals do not appear as narrow straight deep lines in my telescope, but as soft streams of dusky material with frequent condensations.' The drawings by Mr. Phillips well represent the surface of the planet as seen with an instrument of considerable power; and the reader will notice that his representation of the canals agrees remarkably well with Denning's description. The 'soft streams with frequent condensations' are particularly well shown on the drawing of April 22, 1903, which represents the region of 200° longitude (see Chart, Plate [XXI.]) on the centre of the disc. 'The main results of Professor Schiaparelli's work,' remarks Mr. Phillips, 'are imperishable and beyond question. During recent years some observers have given to the so-called "canals" a hardness and an artificiality which they do not possess, with the result that discredit has been brought upon the whole canal system.... But of the substantial accuracy and truthfulness (as a basis on which to work) of the planet's configuration as charted by the great Italian in 1877 and subsequent years, there is in my mind no doubt.' The question of the reality of the canal system may almost be said to have received a definite answer from the remarkable photographs of Mars secured in May, 1905, by Mr. Lampland at the Flagstaff Observatory, which prove that, whatever may be the nature of the canals, the principal ones at all events are actual features of the planet's surface.
Much attention has been directed within the last few years to the observations of Lowell, made with a fine 24-inch refractor at the same observatory, which is situated at an elevation of over 7,000 feet. His conclusion as to the reality of the canals is most positive; but in addition to his confirmation of their existence, he has put forward other views with regard to Mars which as yet have found comparatively few supporters. He has pointed out that in almost all instances the canals radiate from certain round spots which dot the surface of the planet. These spots, which have been seen to a certain extent by other observers, he calls 'oases,' using the term in its ordinary terrestrial significance. His conclusions are, briefly, as follows: That Mars has an atmosphere; that the dark regions are not seas, but marshy tracts of vegetation; that the polar caps are snow and ice, and the reddish portions of the surface desert land. The canals he holds to be waterways, lined on either bank by vegetation, so that we see, not the actual canal, but the green strip of fertilized land through which it passes, while the round dark spots or 'oases' he believes to be the actual population centres of the planet, where the inhabitants cluster to profit by the fertility created by the canals. In support of this view he adduces the observed fact that the canals and oases begin to darken as the polar caps melt, and reasons that this implies that the water set free by the melting of the polar snows is conveyed by artificial means to make the wilderness rejoice.
Lowell's theories may seem, very likely are, somewhat fanciful. It must be remembered, however, that the ground facts of his argument are at least unquestionable, whatever may be thought of his inferences. The melting of the polar caps is matter of direct observation; nor can it be questioned that it is followed by the darkening of the canal system. It is probably wiser not to dogmatize upon the reasons and purposes of these phenomena, for the very sufficient reason that we have no means of arriving at any certitude. Terrestrial analogies cannot safely be used in connection with a globe whose conditions are so different from those of our own earth. The matter is well summed up by Miss Agnes Clerke: 'Evidently the relations of solid and liquid in that remote orb are abnormal; they cannot be completely explained by terrestrial analogies. Yet a series of well-authenticated phenomena are intelligible only on the supposition that Mars is, in some real sense a terraqueous globe. Where snows melt there must be water; and the origin of the Rhone from a great glacier is scarcely more evident to our senses than the dissolution of the Martian ice-caps into pools and streams.'
