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Schiaparelli has extended the investigation to all the stars visible to the naked eye. He laid down on planispheres the number of such stars in each region of the heavens of 5 degrees square. Each region was then shaded with a tint that was darker as the region was richer in stars.
He also has added to the work as an appendix, which cannot fail to attract the attention of many, the views of the great astronomer Schiaparelli upon the present physical condition of Mars, being the reproduction of an article by that distinguished observer translated from Nature et Arte for February, 1893, by Prof.
The celebrated Italian astronomer, Schiaparelli, took advantage of this opportunity to make a trigonometrical survey of the surface of Mars as coolly and confidently as if he were not taking his sights across a thirty-five-million-mile gulf of empty space and in the course of this survey he was astonished to perceive that the reddish areas, then called continents, were crossed in many directions by narrow, dusky lines, to which he gave the suggestive name of ``canals. Thus a kind of firebrand was cast into the field of astronomical speculation, which has ever since produced disputes that have sometimes approached the violence of political faction.
In the closing decade of the nineteenth century, Mr Percival Lowell took up the work where Schiaparelli had virtually dropped it, and soon added a great number of ``canals'' to those previously known, so that in his charts the surface of the wonderful little planet appears covered as with a spider's web, the dusky lines criss-crossing in every direction, with conspicuous knots wherever a number of them come together.
I didn't know, or at least didn't realize, that. One of the things I'm going to place an order for, to be brought on the Schiaparelli, will be a set of primers in chemistry and physics, of the sort intended for a bright child of ten or twelve. It seems that a Martiologist has to learn a lot of things the Hittites and the Assyrians never heard about."
They were accompanied by thirteen drawings of the planet and showed many features represented on the Schiaparelli charts. W.F. Denning in 1885, remarked upon "the seeming permanency of the chief lineaments on Mars, and their distinctiveness of outline." Schiaparelli confirmed his previous observations upon the duplications of the canals and Mr. Knobel published some sketches.
One of the most significant facts that came out in the early observations was the evident connection between the appearance of the canals and the seasonal changes on Mars. It was about the time of the spring equinox, when the white polar caps had begun to melt, that Schiaparelli first noticed the phenomenon of duplication.
The parallelism is sometimes rigorously exact. There is nothing analogous in terrestrial geography. Everything indicates that here there is an organization special to the planet Mars, probably connected with the course of its seasons." Schiaparelli adds that he took every precaution to avoid the least suspicion of illusion. "I am absolutely sure," he says, "of what I have observed."
There is no certainty that the white deposit is what we call snow; perhaps it is not formed of water at all. The most careful studies of the surface of this planet, under the best conditions, are those made at the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona. Especially wonderful is the system of so-called canals, first seen by Schiaparelli, but mapped in great detail at Flagstaff.
The case is different with the so-called canals discovered by Schiaparelli in 1877, which have ever since excited so much interest, and given rise to so much discussion as to their nature. The astronomer who has had the best opportunities for studying them is Mr.
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