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curved parallel lines are, indeed, very unlike anything we have experience of.  It would be rather to be expected that another civilisation than our own would present many wide differences in its development.

What then is the picture we have before us according to Lowell?  It is a sufficiently dramatic one.

Mars is a world whose water supply, never probably very abundant, has through countless years been drying up, sinking into his surface.  But the inhabitants are making a brave fight for it, They have constructed canals right round their world so that the water, which otherwise would run to waste over the vast deserts, is led from oasis to oasis.  Here the great centres of civilisation are placed:  their Londons, Viennas, New Yorks.  These gigantic works are the works of despair.  A great and civilised world finds death staring it in the face.  They have had to triple their canals so that when the central canal has done its work the water is turned into the side canals, in order to utilise it as far as possible.  Through their splendid telescopes they must view our seas and ample rivers; and must die like travellers in the desert seeing in a mirage the cool waters of a distant lake.

Perhaps that lonely signal reported to have been seen in the twilight limb of Mars was the outcome of pride in their splendid and perishing civilisation.  They would leave some memory of it:  they would have us witness how great was that civilisation before they perish!

I close this dramatic picture with the poor comfort

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that several philanthropic people have suggested signalling to them as a mark of sympathy.  It is said that a fortune was bequeathed to the French Academy for the purpose of communicating with the Martians.  It has been suggested that we could flash signals to them by means of gigantic mirrors reflecting the light of our Sun.  Or, again, that we might light bonfires on a sufficiently large scale.  They would have to be about ten miles in diameter!  A writer in the Pall Mall Gazette suggested that there need really be no difficulty in the matter.  With the kind cooperation of the London Gas Companies (this was before the days of electric lighting) a signal might be sent without any additional expense if the gas companies would consent to simultaneously turn off the gas at intervals of five minutes over the whole of London, a signal which would be visible to the astronomers in Mars would result.  He adds, naively:  “If only tried for an hour each night some results might be obtained.”

II

We have reviewed the theory of the artificial construction of the Martian lines.  The amount of consideration we are disposed to give to the supposition that there are upon Mars other minds than ours will—­as I have stated—­necessarily depend upon whether or not we can assign a probable explanation of the lines upon purely physical grounds.  If it is apparent that such