So matters opened at the opposition of 1903. With the advent of the planet and the presentation in due course of Libya in February, the Amenthes duly appeared, much as it had showed at the opposition before, only less salient. It was a confused and seemingly narrower double. Suspected on the 16th of that month, it was definitely seen from the 18th to the 23d. Of the Thoth no mention is made either in the notes or in the drawings. When the region came round again, in March, the Amenthes was still there, showing more feebly, however, than it had in February, in spite of better seeing and the fact that the planet had considerably neared. Clearly the canal was fading out; a fact further witnessed to by the following note made on March 25: “Throughout this opposition thus far the dark triangle tipped by Aquae Calidae has been sharply divided in intensity from the Amenthes, which is very narrow and exceedingly faint.” Still was there no trace of the Thoth. [Illustration: Amenthes feebler and still alone in March.] With the April presentation entered a new order of things. When the region first became visible, on the 16th, the Amenthes could still be seen and alone; but on the 19th, as the relative falling back of the Martian longitudes swung the region nearer the centre of the disk, the Thoth appeared alongside of it. On the 20th the Thoth showed alone. Unmistakable it was and just as Schiaparelli had drawn it, accompanied by the Triton and the curved Nepenthes. The thing was a revelation. What before I had seen only in the spirit of another’s drawings stood there patent to me in the body of my own; while the Amenthes, to which I had so long been accustomed, had vanished into thin air. Only a trace of it was now and then to be made out. So startlingly strange was the metamorphosis that I could not at first trust my eyes, and questioned the broken line, which had replaced the straight, for some ocular deception. But nothing I could do would rectify it. The Amenthes was gone and the Thoth stood in its stead. [Illustration: Appearance of Thoth with Triton and curved Nepenthes. Amenthes vanished. April 20.]