Page:Mars - Lowell.djvu/60

was in question. That would have decreased the values of the equatorial diameter instead of increasing them, and, what is more immediately to the point, the correction for it had already been made. This correction is easily ascertained, for it depends chiefly upon the position of the planet in its orbit, which is known with great accuracy. The resulting values, therefore, had nothing to do with the phase correction as such, but they did, nevertheless, have to do with the phase itself.