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The observations of that keen-sighted observer Dawes led to the first good map of Mars, in 1869. In the 1877 opposition Schiaparelli revived interest in the planet by the discovery of canals, uniformly about sixty miles wide, running generally on great circles, some of them being three or four thousand miles long.
Schiaparelli had satisfied himself, by a careful series of observations, of the truth of his strange announcement, but before giving it to the world he determined to make doubly sure. Early in 1890 he withdrew the pledge of secrecy from his friends and published his discovery.
That there are some shadowy features of the planet's surface to be seen in favourable circumstances is probable, but the time for drawing a "map of Venus" has not yet come. The previous work of Schiaparelli lends a certain degree of probability to Mr. Lowell's observations on the rotation of Venus.
Presently it was shown by the Italian astronomer Schiaparelli that one of these meteor swarms moves in the orbit of a previously observed comet, and other coincidences of the kind were soon forthcoming.
Even on such a subject as the canals of Mars doubts may still be felt. That certain markings to which Schiaparelli gave the name of canals exist, few will question. But it may be questioned whether these markings are the fine, sharp, uniform lines found on Schiaparelli's map and delineated in Lowell's beautiful book.
"You remember how we came to the conclusion that Schiaparelli was right, and that the planet Venus, by rotating about her own axis in the same time as she takes to revolve around the sun, always keeps the same face turned to the sun, one hemisphere being in perpetual light and summer, whilst the other is in perpetual darkness and winter?" "Yes."
Important series of double-star observations were made by Perrotin at Nice in 1883-4; by Hall, with the 26-inch Washington equatoreal, 1874 to 1891; by Schiaparelli from 1875 onward; by Glasenapp, O. Stone, Leavenworth, Seabroke, and many besides. Finally, Professor Hussey's revision of the Pulkowa Catalogue is a work of the teres atque rotundus kind, which leaves little or nothing to be desired.
The special characteristics of the numerous lines which intersect the whole of the equatorial and temperate regions of Mars are, their straightness combined with their enormous length. It is this which has led Mr. Lowell to term them 'non-natural features. Schiaparelli, in his earlier drawings, showed them curved and of comparatively great width.
Bishop's observatory at Twickenham reckoned 514, and during an hour 1,120. Before daylight the earth had fairly cut her way through the star-bearing stratum; the "ethereal rockets" had ceased to fly. This event brought the subject of shooting stars once more vividly to the notice of astronomers. Schiaparelli had, indeed, been already attracted by it.
A strange puzzling statement was made that the canals could be traced straight across seas and continents in the line of the meridian. M. Terby confirmed many of these observations. Later the so-called "inundation of Lydia," observed by M. Perrotin, was doubted. Schiaparelli himself, Terby, Niesten at Brussels, and Holden at the Lick Observatory, failed to remark this change.
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