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46 One of these specially fertile spots, situated upon the borderland betwixt the dark and the light regions, has a picturesque history. It lies at the head of the Margaritifer Sinus, or Pearl-Bearing Gulf, so named some years ago by Schiaparelli; the name having been given by him to the gulf quite fortuitously. But it turns out that the gulf was prophetically named, for there in it is this round spot which makes terminus to a short canal connecting it with the lower end of the western Sabaeus Sinus, and probably also terminus to a long canal coming from the Chrysorrhoas, across both branches of the Ganges. Diving into the depths of space has thus brought up the pearl from the bottom of the gulf. We thus perceive that the blue-green areas are subjected to the same engineering system as the bright ones. In short, no part of the planet is allowed to escape from the all- pervasive trigonometric spirit. If this be Nature's doing, she certainly runs her mathematics into the ground. To review, now, the chain of reasoning by which we have been led to regard it probable that upon the surface of Mars we see the effects of local intelligence: we find, in the first place, that the broad physical conditions of the planet are not antagonistic to some form of life; secondly, that there is an apparent dearth of water upon the planet's surface, and therefore, if beings of sufficient intelligence inhabited it, they would have to resort to irrigation to support life; thirdly, that there turns out to be a network of markings covering the disc precisely counterparting what a system of irrigation would look like; and, lastly, that there is a set of spots placed where we should expect to find the lands thus artificially fertilized, and behaving as such constructed oases should. All this, of course, may be a set of coincidences, signifying nothing; but the probability seems the other way. As to details of explanation, any we may adopt will undoubtedly be found, on closer acquaintance, to vary from the actual Martian state of things; for any Martian life must differ markedly from our own. The fundamental fact in the matter is the dearth of water. If we keep this in mind, we shall see that many of the objections that spontaneously arise answer themselves. The supposed Herculean task of constructing such canals disappears at once; for if the canals be dug for irrigation purposes, it is evident that what we see and call, by ellipsis, the canal is not really the canal at all, but the strip of fertilized land bordering it,--the thread of water in the midst of it, the canal itself, being far too small to be perceptible. In the case of an irrigation canal seen at a distance, it is always the strip of verdure, not the canal, that is visible, as we see in looking from afar upon irrigated country on the earth. Startling as the outcome of these observations may appear at first, in truth there is nothing startling about it whatever. Such possibility has been quite on the cards ever since the existence of Mars itself was recognized by the Chaldean shepherds, or whoever the still more primeval astronomers may have been. Its strangeness is a purely subjective phenomenon, arising from the instinctive reluctance of man to admit the possibility of peers. Such would be comic were it not the inevitable consequence of the constitution of fertilized spots is not confined to the deserts, but extends in a modified form over the we te areas of more or less vegetation.