Snow caps of solid carbonic acid gas, a planet cracked in a positively monomaniacal manner meteors ploughing tracks across its surface with such mathematical precision that they must have been educated to the performance, and so forth and so on, in hypotheses each more astounding than its predecessor, commend themselves to man, if only by such means he may escape the admission of anything approaching his kind.

Percival Lowell.

I am led to present these few brief memoranda of my own work in order to meet questions which would naturally be asked as to whether I had ever seen Mars through a telescope, and if so did I make out any markings or canals.

It was my good fortune to have the privilege of observing Mars every night at the Lowell Observatory (see Plate VII) for thirty-four days, covering an almost complete presentation of the planet. A few nights were cloudy and no observations were made. With these exceptions I was in the observer's chair several times each evening. The twenty-four inch refractor of which I had the use was the last telescope Clark ever made, and he pronounced it his best one. This instrument (Plate VIII) is mounted on a mesa near the town of Flagstaff, Arizona, at a height of over 7,000 feet above sea-level, in an atmosphere of remarkable clarity and steadiness. I have already stated on page 80 my first experiences in observing and will only present the brief notes I made at the time of observation. Better results would have accompanied these efforts had I followed the custom of Michael Faraday and asked what was I to look at, what was I expected to see? I had been somewhat prejudiced as to the existence of the canals by the comments of sporadic observers, many of whom, by the way, had never been able to see them, and denying that any one else ever had, straightway proceeded to suggest a theory to explain their presence! Careful to avoid any bias in the matter I rigidly refused to allow either Professor Lowell or his assistants to suggest where I might find a canal or a marking on the disk. The night before I left the Observatory for home I asked Mr. Lowell for the first time, to indicate the position of some conspicuous canal which I had not seen. This he did and examining the region which I supposed he had indicated on the disk I searched in vain for the line. In doing so another line was detected and drawn, and on confessing my failure to see the line he had described, showed him my drawing, when he exclaimed, "Why, you have got it," and sure enough when he showed me his drawing and repeated the directions he had given me, I found that I had been looking at the wrong pole of the planet.

In one stage of great discouragement I came across a statement made by Mr. A. Stanley Williams which has already been quoted, namely, that he had to observe continually for two months before sufficient sensitiveness enabled him to make out the more delicate markings. That I might have seen more had I been acclimated, and had been accustomed to telescopic observation there is no doubt. The record is poor enough and yet under the conditions mentioned the results may be of interest to the reader.

On Plate IX I give a few of my drawings of Mars in which are indicated the lines I saw many times and was able to fix. Other lines flashed out for an instant but these were not recorded, simply because I could not definitely locate them.

The expression "poor seeing" in the above notes must be taken in a comparative sense with relation to the usual conditions of the atmosphere of Flagstaff. Poor seeing, therefore, at Flagstaff would be equal, if not superior, to the best seeing at much lower levels. An astronomer who resigned his position in a western observatory for duties at Mount Wilson, California, told me that for thirty consecutive nights the seeing was superior to the best nights he had observed in at his former post.