obliquely, or at right angles. They have a breadth of two degrees, or
120 kilometres [74 miles], and several extend over a length of eighty
degrees, or 4,800 kilometres [nearly 3,000 miles]. Their tint is very
nearly the same as that of the seas, usually a little lighter. Every
canal terminates at both its extremities in a sea, or in another canal;
there is not a single example of one coming to an end in the midst of
dry land.

"This is not all. In certain seasons these canals become double. This
phenomenon seems to appear at a determinate epoch, and to be produced
simultaneously over the entire surface of the planet's continents. There
was no indication of it in 1877, during the weeks that preceded and
followed the summer solstice of that world. A single isolated case
presented itself in 1879. On the 26th of December, this year--a little
before the spring equinox, which occurred on Mars on the 21st of
January, 1880--I noticed the doubling of the Nile [a canal thus named]
between the Lakes of the Moon and the Ceraunic Gulf. These two regular,
equal, and parallel lines caused me, I confess, a profound surprise,
the more so because a few days earlier, on the 23d and the 24th of
December, I had carefully observed that very region without discovering
anything of the kind.

"I awaited with curiosity the return of the planet in 1881, to see if an
analogous phenomenon would present itself in the same place, and I saw
the same thing reappear on the 11th of January, 1882, one month after
the spring equinox--which occurred on the 8th of December, 1881. The
duplication was still more evident at the end of February. On this same
date, the 11th of January, another duplication had already taken place,
that of the middle portion of the canal of the Cyclops, adjoining
Elysium. [Elysium is a part of one of the continental areas.]