Page:Mars - Lowell.djvu/222

 The direction of the canal also affects its time of appearance, though to a less extent. Canals running north and south, such as the Gorgon, the Titan, the Brontes, and the like, became visible, as a rule, before those running east and west. Especially was this noticeable in the more northern portions of the disk. Time of appearance was evidently a question of latitude tempered by ease of communication.

After the canals had appeared, their relative intensities changed with time, and the change followed the same order in which the initial change from invisibility to visibility had taken place. A like metamorphosis happened to each in turn from south to north, in accordance with, and continuance of, the seasonal change that affected all the blue-green areas.

To account for these phenomena, the explanation that at once suggests itself is, that a direct transference of water takes place over the face of the planet, and that the canals are so many waterways. This explanation labors under the difficulty of explaining nothing. There are two other objections to it: an insufficiency of water, and a superabundance of time, for some months elapsed between the apparent departure of the water from the pole and its apparent advent in the equatorial regions; furthermore, each canal did not darken all at once, but gradually. We must therefore seek some