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

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lines would be formed with great probability under certain
conditions, which conditions are themselves probable, then the
argument by exclusion for the existence of civilisation on Mars,
at once breaks down.

{Fig. 10}

As a romance writer is sometimes under the necessity of
transporting his readers to other scenes, so I must now ask you
to consent to be transported some millions

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of miles into the region of the heavens which lies outside Mars'
orbit.

Between Mars and Jupiter is a chasm of 341 millions of miles.
This gap in the sequence of planets was long known to be quite
out of keeping with the orderly succession of worlds outward from
the Sun. A society was formed at the close of the last century
for the detection of the missing world. On the first day of the
last century, Piazzi--who, by the way, was not a member of the
society--discovered a tiny world in the vacant gap. Although
eagerly welcomed, as better than nothing, it was a disappointing
find. The new world was a mere rock. A speck of about 160 miles
in diameter. It was obviously never intended that such a body
should have all this space to itself. And, sure enough, shortly
after, another small world was discovered. Then another was
found, and another, and so on; and now more than 400 of these
strange little worlds are known.

But whence came such bodies? The generally accepted belief is
that these really represent a misbegotten world. When the Sun was
younger he shed off the several worlds of our system as so many
rings. Each ring then coalesced into a world. Neptune being the
first born; Mercury the youngest born.

After Jupiter was thrown off, and the Sun had shrunk away inwards
some 20o million miles, he shed off another ring. Meaning that
this offspring of his should grow up like the rest, develop into
a stable world with the

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potentiality even, it may be, of becoming the abode of rational
beings. But something went wr