Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/395

Rh Schiaparelli opened a new era in 1877 (Map V.). Unsuspicious of what he was to stumble on, he seized the then favorable opposition to make, as he put it, a geodetic survey of the planet's surface. He hoped to find this undertaking feasible to the accuracy of micrometric measurement. His hopes did not belie him. He found that it was

possible to measure his positions with sufficient exactness to make a skeleton map on which to embody the markings in detail—and thus to give his map vertebrate support. But in the course of his work he became aware of hitherto unrecognized traits of the so-called continents.

Instead of displaying a broad unity of face the bright areas appeared to be but groundwork for streaks. The streaks traversed them in all directions, tessellating the continents into a tilework of islands. Such mosaic was not only new, but the fashion of the thing was of a new order or kind. The old markings were patches which might well