The little are distinguished from the large by being pin-points instead
of pin-heads. They are most minute; from fifteen to twenty-five miles
in diameter only. That anything except size distinguishes the two apart
is from their look improbable. In color or rather tone,—for
distinctive color is of such minute objects unpredicable,—they would
seem to be alike. Such is also the case with their distribution and
detail association.
[Illustration: Fons Immortalis, June 19.]
To the second class belong the Fons Juventae,—Schiaparelli’s Fountain
of Youth,—the Fons Immortalis in Elysium in 1905, and the Gygaea
Palus, besides many more. These are all pin-points, just upon the limit
of vision, and noteworthy chiefly for being visible at all. All those
detected so far lie not very distant from the equator, which may or may
not be a matter of accident. It is not one of perception, since this
part of the planet was not the best place for observation at the time
they were discovered. To make out one of these little dots is a
peculiarly pleasing bit of observation, as it requires particularly
good definition. One might almost take them for fly-specks upon the
image did they not move with the disk. They have no perceptible size
and yet are clearly larger in diameter than the canals which run into
them; which proves how very slender the latter must be.
Very early in the detection of the spots it became evident that they
were not scattered haphazard over the surface, but that on the contrary
they were never found except at the meeting-points of the lines. From
this it must not be supposed, as has been done, that the spots are
merely optical reinforcements of the lines at their crossings due to
the more crowded character there of the lines themselves. That they are
not such is demonstrated by the existence of crossings where, either
temporarily or permanently, none appear; which shows that they are far
too well seen for any such illusion about them to be possible. At these
crossings the lines traverse one another without thickening, whether
they be single or double lines. The spots, on the other hand, are much
wider than the lines, giving a beaded look to the threads. In short,
they are the knots to the canal network. All the more important
junctions are characterized by their presence. Such starred junctions
are not confined to the ochre regions; they dot the light and the dark
areas with equal impartiality, thus showing themselves to be
independent of the nature of the ground where large stretches of
country are concerned. On the other hand, they appear to be unusually
numerous in the smaller, isolated, dark areas of the northern
hemisphere, such as the Trivium, the Mare Acidalium, the Propontis, and
the Wedge of Casius. Here they crowd; and one cannot avoid the
inference that their plentifulness in these regions is not due to
chance.
[Illustration: _Utopia regio—1903._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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