Page:Mars - Lowell.djvu/246

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182
MARS

Titans, a point of departure for canals; no less than six of them, and doubtless more, leaving the gulf in variously radiating directions. At the place where these canals severally cross the Eumenides-Orcus, I began in November to see spots. I also saw others along the Pyriphlegethon, an important canal leading in a more northerly direction from the Phoenix Lake; along the Gigas, a great canal running from the Gulf of the Titans all the way to the Lake of the Moon; and along other canals in the same region. I then noticed that the spots to the north of the Solis Lacus region had darkened, since August, relatively to the more southern ones. In short, I became aware both of a great increase in the number of spots, and of an increase in tint in the spots previously seen.

It was apparent that the spots were part and parcel of the canal system, and that in the matter of varying visibility they took after the canals,—chronologically, very closely after them; for a comparison of the two leads me to believe that the spots make their appearance subsequent, although but little subsequent, to the canals which conduct to them.

Furthermore, the spots, like the canals, grow in conspicuousness with time. Now, when we consider that nothing, practically, has changed between us and them in the interval; that