It is a question whether, after all, the study of planetary markings comes within the province of astronomers. Not more, perhaps, than the study of physical geography and subjects connected with the surface features of the Earth, comes under the cognizance of those whose profession it is to determine the oscillation of the pole, the Earth's movements due to the Moon, etc. Indeed, these lines of research are strictly astronomical. With the study of the surface markings of the Moon, or Mars, features of an entirely different kind are to be interpreted, and quite a different equipment is necessary. It is no wonder, then, that astronomers, the most conservative of all classes of investigators, should view with suspicion the results of the work of Schiaparelli, Lowell and others. Immersed in mathematics, trusting in nothing that cannot be measured and reckoned, as a class holding their imagination in abeyance, is it any surprise that they should present an attitude of indifference and even hostility to the work of those who, differently equipped mentally, have attempted a definition and solution of the riddle of the Martian markings? To appreciate how foreign to the studies of an astronomer is the interpretation of the canals of Mars, one has simply to scan the index of any astronomical publication, or the titles of papers in the transactions of astronomical societies. For example, take volumes XX and XXI of the "Astronomical Journal" and tabulate the papers, memoirs, etc., therein published, numbering two hundred and thirty-eight, and we find of these, seventy-four on the stars; sixty-two on the comets; nineteen on planets and satellites, mostly mathematical; eighteen on the Sun; eighteen on the asteroids; fifteen on Eros; ten on polar motion and latitude; four on Nova Persei; and seventeen miscellaneous, consisting of logarithms, instruments, Gegenschein, etc.; and only one on Mars, and this on the polar snow caps! As to the question whether it is more important to add another to the thousands of variable stars and binaries, and hundreds of asteroids, already determined, or to consider whether we are alone in the universe and, if so, the significance of it, I think with the intelligent public there can be no doubt.