Page:Percival Lowell - an afterglow.djvu/169

An Afterglow MARS' HILL

It does one good to hear pleasant things. It is like a ray of sunshine on a stormy day. So I must needs forsooth sit right down and thank you. The rest of the letter was also good to read. The same mail brought a request from the far-off Philippines for Macmillan's latest books on Mars, etc.—from a friend of my friend Mason of Yokohama who had piloted him in astronomy. It is good to mark the spread of knowledge like the ripples from a stone thrown upon the water, voyaging ever.

We have just sent you a big storm—I have marked its progress right across the continent. It gave us a foot of snow—on top of thirty inches already. I hope it wasn't too disagreeable. We are now enjoying (?) another and sat up some time last evening with a temporary convalescing sky to some slight profit.

A jack-rabbit now inhabits the Observatory grounds. I have twice flushed him from his precious night's couch in the hollow under the crest that overlooks the mill; and twice failed in snap-shotting him with my camera. Coyote tracks are in evidence everywhere but I have not seen the beasts in the flesh.

Our Saturn studies progress; we have missed but one night since I arrived, though two of the others have not been much. Curtis snow-shoes everywhere and I enclose a shot I took of him measuring the depth of the snow just under the west hill where you found one of your arrowheads. 131