That this was the case was evident from much less information than is forthcoming today; but what is significant, each new fact discovered about the planet goes to show that it is unquestionably true.
From the detection of the main markings that diversify the surface of Mars we now pass to a discovery of so unprecedented a character that the scientific world was at first loath to accept it. Only persistent corroboration has finally broken down distrust; and, even so, doubt of the genuineness of the phenomena still lingers in the minds of many who have not themselves seen the sight because of the inherent difficulty of the observations. For it is not one where confirmation may be summoned in the laboratory at will, but one demanding that the watcher should wait upon the sky, with more than ordinary acumen. This latter-day revelation is the discovery of the canals.
Quite unlike in look to the main features of the planet’s face is this second set of markings which traverse its disk, and which the genius of Schiaparelli disclosed. Unnatural they may well be deemed; for they are not in the least what one would expect to see. They differ from the first class, not in degree, but in kind; and the kind is of a wholly unparalleled sort. While the former bear a family resemblance to those of the earth; the latter are peculiar to Mars, finding no counterpart upon the earth at all.
Introduction to the mystery came about in this wise, and will be repeated for him who is successful in his search. When a fairly acute eyed observer sets himself to scan the telescopic disk of the planet in steady air, he will, after noting the dazzling contour of the white polar cap and the sharp outlines of the blue-green seas, of a sudden be made aware of a vision as of a thread stretched somewhere from the blue-green across the orange areas of the disk. Gone as quickly as it came, he will instinctively doubt his own eyesight, and credit to illusion what can so unaccountably disappear. Gaze as hard as he will, no power of his can recall it, when, with the same startling abruptness, the thing stands before his eyes again. Convinced, after three or four such showings, that the vision is real, he will still be left wondering what and where it was. For so short and sudden are its apparitions that the locating of it is dubiously hard. It is gone each time before he has got its bearings.