The connection of the canals with the oases is no less telltale of intent. The spots are found only at junctions, clearly the seal and sanction of such rendezvous. Their relation to the canals that enter them bespeaks method and design. Centring single lines, they are inclosed by doubles, a disposition such as would be true did they hold a pivotal position in the planet’s economy. The shape of the oases also suggests significance. Their form is round, a solid circle of shading of so deep a tone as to seem black, although undoubtedly in truth blue-green. Now, a circular area has this peculiar property, that it incloses for a given length of perimeter the maximum of space. Any other area has a longer inclosing boundary for the surface inclosed. Considering each area to be made up of onion-like envelops to an original core, each similar in shape to the kernel, we see that the property in question means that the average distance for points of the circular area from the centre is less than the same distance for those of any other figure. This has immediate bearing on the possible fashioning of such areas. For sufficient intelligence in the fashioners would certainly lead to a construction, where the greatest area could be attended to at the least expenditure of force. This would be where the distance to be traveled from the centre to all the desired points was on the average least; that is, the area would be round. But last and all-embracing in its import is the system which the canals form. Instead of running at haphazard, the canals are interconnected in a most remarkable manner. They seek centres instead of avoiding them. The centres are linked thus perfectly one with another, an arrangement which could not result from centres, whether of explosion or otherwise, which were themselves discrete. Furthermore, the system covers the whole surface of the planet, dark areas and light ones alike, a world-wide distribution which exceeds the bounds of natural possibility. Any force which could act longitudinally on such a scale must be limited latitudinally in its action, as witness the belts of Jupiter or the spots upon the sun. Rotational, climatic, or other physical cause could not fail of zonal expression. Yet these lines are grandly indifferent to such compelling influences. Finally, the system after meshing the surface in its entirety runs straight into the polar caps. It is, then, a system whose end and aim is the tapping of the snow-cap for the water there semiannually let loose; then to distribute it over the planet’s face. Function of this very sort is evidenced by the look of the canals. Further study during the last eleven years as to their behavior leads to a like conclusion, while at the same time it goes much farther by revealing the action in the case. This action proves to be not only in accord with the theory, but interestingly explanatory of the process.