I don't think for a moment that it is. I have read his book carefully, but cannot see that he makes out a case for so strange an idea. That there is plenty of life elsewhere seems to me practically certain; but whether Mr. Lowell has really detected signs of it on Mars is more doubtful. Of one thing, however, there is no doubt; he has certainly written some most fascinating books, which will teach you much and tell you a story at the same time; I heartily advise you to read some or all of them. The kind of story he has to tell is this: Mars has become dried up, so that it has no great oceans as we have, making rains which fertilize the ground so that plants may grow; there is very little water indeed on Mars. Every one agrees to that. Mr. Lowell, however, says that there is some water, mostly frozen up in the polar caps; when these melt at the edges with the coming of Spring and Summer, the inhabitants draw this water off quickly to the thirsty land in long sluices; vegetation immediately springs up on the banks of these sluices, making a wide belt of verdure. Something of the kind may be seen in Egypt when the Nile floods: the surrounding country, previously brown and bare, becomes covered with crops. An observer in the Moon or in Mars might not see the thin river Nile in the dry season, but after the flood, when the whole width of the country is green, he would scarcely fail to notice it. So with Mars: the "canals" disappear at times; then, Mr. Lowell says, there is little or no water in them and the surrounding country is bare and dry. The polar cap melts a little, the water is drawn into the sluices, the crops spring up on the banks, bordering the narrow sluice
