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Updated: May 17, 2025
The observation of the gemination is one of the greatest difficulty, and can only be made by an eye well practiced in such work, added to a telescope of accurate construction and of great power. This explains why it is that it was not seen before 1882. In the ten years that have transpired since that time, it has been seen and described at eight or ten observatories.
In different oppositions the gemination of the same canal may present different appearances as to width, intensity, and arrangement of the two stripes; also in some cases the direction of the lines may vary, although by the smallest quantity, but still deviating by a small amount from the canal with which they are directly associated.
Often one of these is seen transformed into two short, broad, dark lines parallel to one another and traversed by a yellow line. In these cases the gemination is naturally short and does not exceed the limits of the original lake.
If we should assume such a work, a certain variability would not be excluded from it; for example, extensive agricultural labor and irrigation upon a large scale. Let us add, further, that the intervention of intelligent beings might explain the geometrical appearance of the gemination, but it is not at all necessary for such a purpose.
From this important fact it is immediately understood that the gemination cannot be a fixed formation upon the surface of Mars and of a geographical character like the canals. The second of our maps will give an approximate idea of the appearance which these singular formations present. It contains all the geminations observed since 1882 up to the present time.
The color of the two lines varies from black to a light red, which can hardly be distinguished from the general yellow background of the continental surface. The space between is for the most part yellow, but in many cases appears whitish. The gemination is not necessarily confined only to the canals, but tends to be produced also in the lakes.
The gemination is not shown by all at the same time, but when the season is at hand it begins to be produced here and there, in an isolated, irregular manner, or at least without any easily recognizable order. After having lasted for some months, the markings fade out gradually and disappear until another season equally favorable for their formation.
As to the gemination or duplication of many of the lines which, at the beginning of the season, appear single, it may be suggested that, in the course of the development of the vast irrigation system of the planet parallel bands of cultivation have been established, one receiving its water supply from the canals of the other, and consequently lagging a little behind in visibility as the water slowly percolates through the soil and awakens the vegetation.
Thus, the gemination is supposed to be due either to the effects of light in the atmosphere of Mars, or to optical illusions produced by vapors in various manners, or to glacial phenomena of a perpetual winter, to which it is known all the planets will be condemned, or to double cracks in its surface, or to single cracks of which the images are doubled by the effect of smoke issuing in long lines and blown laterally by the wind.
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