The poles of the planet are inclined from a perpendicular to the plane of its orbit at very nearly the same angle as that of the earth’s poles, viz., 24 deg. 50 min.  Its rotation on its axis is also effected in almost the same period as the earth’s, viz., 24 hours, 37 minutes.

When in opposition to the sun, Mars may be only about 35,000,000 miles from the earth, but its average distance when in that position is more than 48,000,000 miles, and may be more than 60,000,000.  These differences arise from the eccentricities of the orbits of the two planets.  When on the farther side of the sun—­i.e., in conjunction with the sun as seen from the earth—­Mars’s average distance from us is about 235,000,000 miles.  In consequence of these great changes in its distance, Mars is sometimes a very conspicuous object in the sky, and at other times inconspicuous.

The similarity in the inclination of the axis of the two planets results in a close resemblance between the seasons on Mars and on the earth, although, owing to the greater length of its year, Mars’s seasons are much longer than ours.  Winter and summer visit in succession its northern and southern hemispheres just as occurs on the planet that we inhabit, and the torrid, temperate, and frigid zones on its surface have nearly the same angular width as on the earth.  In this respect Mars is the first of the foreign planets we have studied to resemble the earth.

Around each of its poles appears a circular white patch, which visibly expands when winter prevails upon it, and rapidly contracts, sometimes almost completely disappearing, under a summer sun.  From the time of Sir William Herschel the almost universal belief among astronomers has been that these gleaming polar patches on Mars are composed of snow and ice, like the similar glacial caps of the earth, and no one can look at them with a telescope and not feel the liveliest interest in the planet to which they belong, for they impart to it an appearance of likeness to our globe which at first glance is all but irresistible.

To watch one of them apparently melting, becoming perceptibly smaller week after week, while the general surface of the corresponding hemisphere of the planet deepens in color, and displays a constantly increasing wealth of details as summer advances across it, is an experience of the most memorable kind, whose effect upon the mind of the observer is indescribable.

Early in the history of the telescope it became known that, in addition to the polar caps, Mars presented a number of distinct surface features, and gradually, as instruments increased in power and observers in skill, charts of the planet were produced showing a surface diversified somewhat in the manner that characterizes the face of the earth, although the permanent forms do not closely resemble those of our planet.

Two principal colors exist on the disk of Mars—­dark, bluish gray or greenish gray, characterizing areas which have generally been regarded as seas, and light yellowish red, overspreading broad regions looked upon as continents.  It was early observed that if the dark regions really are seas, the proportion of water to land upon Mars is much smaller than upon the earth.