August Bixby Dodan.

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Note by the Editor.

The MS. alluded to by Mr. Dodan in the preceding paragraphs was safely brought to New York in 1900, and after a very careful examination, repeatedly rejected by the prominent publishers to whom it was submitted.

Through a peculiar accident connected with some negotiations pertaining to a scientific work, contemplated by the writer, the MS. came into his hands, and he has been encouraged to publish it, influenced by the favorable comments of friends upon its intrinsic interest.  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.  William H. Pickering and published in the Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1894, published here by permission of “Astronomy and Astro-Physics,” in which journal it first appeared in Vol.  XIII., numbers 8 and 9, for October and November, 1894.  In this report also appeared Schiaparelli’s Map of Mars in 1888, which the Editor has not reproduced in this connection.

The introduction to-day of the wireless telegraphy, assuming a daily increasing importance, furnishes some reasonable hope that the marvellous statements given in Mr. Dodd’s narrative may be more widely verified in the future, and point the way to a realization of the daring and thrilling conception of interplanetary communication.

THE PLANET MARS.

BY GIOVANNI SCHIAPARELLI.

THE PLANET MARS.

BY GIOVANNI SCHIAPARELLI.

Many of the first astronomers who studied Mars with the telescope had noted on the outline of its disk two brilliant white spots of rounded form and of variable size.  In process of time it was observed that while the ordinary spots upon Mars were displaced rapidly in consequence of its daily rotation, changing in a few hours both their position and their perspective, the two white spots remained sensibly motionless at their posts.  It was concluded rightly from this that they must occupy the poles of rotation of the planet, or at least must be found very near to them.  Consequently they were given the name of polar caps or spots.  And not without reason is it conjectured that these represent upon Mars that immense mass of snow and ice which still to-day prevents navigators from reaching the poles of the earth.  We are led to this conclusion not only by the analogy of aspect and of place, but also by another important observation....