g
downwards a little to the left, the canal Udon, which runs through a
dark area quite to the outer margin. In the dark area, however, there is
shown on the chart a spot Aspledon Lucus, where five canals meet, and if
this is taken as a terminus the Udon canal is almost exactly 2000 miles
long, and another on its right, Lapadon, is the same length, while Ich,
running in a slightly curved line to a large spot (Lucus Castorius on
the chart) is still longer. The Ulysses canal, which (on the chart) runs
straight from the point of the Mare Sirenum to the Astraeeus Lucus is
about 2200 miles long. Others however are even longer, and Mr. Lowell
says: "With them 2000 miles is common; while many exceed 2500; and the
Eumenides-Orcus is 3540 miles from the point where it leaves Lucus
Phoeniceus to where it enters the Trivium Charontis." This last canal is
barely visible on our map, its commencement being indicated by the word
Eumenides.

The Trivium Charontis is situated just beyond the right-hand margin of
our map. It is a triangular dark area, the sides about 200 miles long,
and it is shown on the chart as being the centre from which radiate
thirteen canals. Another centre is Aquae Calidae situated at the point
of a dark area running obliquely from 55 deg. to 35 deg. N. latitude, and, as
shown on a map of the opposite hemisphere to our map, has nearly twenty
canals radiating from it in almost every direction. Here at all events
there seems to be no special connection with the polar snow-caps, and
the radiating lines seem to have no intelligent purpose whatever, but
are such as might result from fractures in a glass globe produced by
firing at it with very small shots one at a time. Taking the whole
series of them, Mr. Lowell very justly compares them to "a network which
triangulates the surface of the planet like a geodetic survey, into
polygons of all shapes and sizes."

At the very lowest estimate the total length of the canals observed and
mapped by Mr. Lowell must be over a hundred thousand miles, while he
assures us that numbers of others have been seen over the whole surface,
but so faintly or on such rare occasions as to elude all attempts to fix
their position with certainty. But these, being of the same character
and evidently forming part of the same system, must also be artificial,
and thus we are led to a system of irrigation of almost unimaginable
magnitude on a planet which has no mountains, no rivers, and no rain t