een a wee
bit too strong for me!"

"Well," replied John, "if your usual drink has the effect of making you
see double, take good advice, and leave the whisky severely alone when
you are on Mars, or else you will be seeing _four_ moons all at once,
and receive such a shock that you will never get over it!"

M'Allister laughed pleasantly as John said this. He is a real good
fellow, and takes all John's chaff with the utmost good-humour; but, in
justice to him, I must say that, although he sticks to his national
drink like a true Scot, I have never once seen him any the worse for it.
He knows his limitations, and always keeps within them.

CHAPTER X

THE DISCOVERY OF LINES UPON MARS--THE GREAT MARTIAN CONTROVERSY

After the little interlude with M'Allister, I resumed my remarks by
saying that "The year 1877, so memorable for the near approach of Mars
and the discovery of its two tiny satellites, was also the year in which
a still more important discovery was made--a discovery, in fact, which
has much enlarged our knowledge of the planet, and has also resulted in
an entire revision of our conceptions respecting it.

"An Italian astronomer, Signor Schiaparelli, took advantage of the
favourable position of Mars to observe it very carefully, and some time
afterwards announced that he had seen upon its surface a number of very
fine lines which had not previously been noticed, and these he had
carefully charted upon his drawings and maps.

"This announcement started one of the most acrimonious discussions that
the astronomical world has ever known; and although it is now over
thirty years since it commenced, astronomers are still divided into two
parties--one accepting the lines as demonstrated facts, the other either
denying their existence, or endeavouring to explain them away by various
more or less ingenious or fanciful theories.

[Illustration: _From a Globe made by M. Wicks_ Plate VIII

MARS. MAP I

In all these maps the south is at the top. The dark shaded portions are
vegetation, mostly on old sea-beds. The fine lines are the canals, and
the round dots the oases. The light areas are deserts. Longitude "0" is
seen on the Equator between the two forks of the "Sabaeus Sinus."]

"When Signor Schiaparelli's statements and drawings were first
discussed, it was declared by some to be quite impossible that these
fine lines could really have been seen by him: either his eyes must have
been overstrained, or he