receiving their communications, vary greatly. Some of us can. only be influenced by ideas or impressions, which we think are altogether the product of our own minds. Others can be so strongly acted on that they feel an inexplicable emotion, leading to action beneficial to themselves or to others. In some cases, warning or information can be given through dreams, in others by waking vision. Some spirits have the power of producing visual, others audible hallucinations to certain persons. More rarely, and needing more special conditions, they can produce phantasms, which are audible or visible to all who may be present real entities which give off light or sound waves, and thus act upon our senses like living beings or material objects. Still more rarely these phantasms are tangible as well as visual — real though temporary living forms, capable of acting like human beings, and of exerting considerable force on ordinary matter.

If we look upon these phenomena not as anything supernatural, but as the perfectly natural and orderly exercise of the faculties and powers of spiritual beings for the purpose of communicating with those still in the physical body, we shall find every objection answered, and every difficulty disappear. Nothing is more common than objections to the triviality or the partiality of the communications alleged to be from spirits. But the most trivial message or act, if such that no living person could have given or performed it, may give proof of the existence of other intelligences around us. And the partiality often displayed, one person being warned and saved, while others are left to die, is but an indication of the limited power of spirits to act upon us, combined with the limited receptivity of spirit influence on our part. In conclusion, I submit, that the brief review now given of the various classes of phantasms of the living and of the dead, demonstrates the inadequacy of all the explanations in which telepathy between living persons, or the agency of the unconscious ego are exclusively concerned, since these explanations are only capable of dealing with a small proportion of the cases that actually occur. Furthermore, I urge, that nothing less fundamental and far-reaching than the agency of disembodied intelligences acting in co-operation with our own powers of thought-transference and spiritual insight, can afford a rational and intelligible explanation of the whole range of the phenomena.

NEW DISCOVERIES ON THE PLANET MARS.

BY CAMILLE FLAMMARION.

HOWEVER great the interest pertaining to things terrestrial, it is not unpleasant to rise from time to time a little higher, and live for a moment in contemplation of the immense perspective of infinity. The starry firmament, which surrounds us on all sides, is unceasingly observed by astronomers, and not unfrequently some new discovery causes us to advance one step further towards the solution of grand mysteries.

The childish notion that the planet on which we dwell is. the only world inhabited among the billions of globes which now exist, have heretofore existed, or may yet exist in the eternal immensity- is no longer held in our day, save by a few belated minds, who obstinately shut their eyes to the light of the sun. Our mediocre habitation has received from nature no special privileges; and every new investigation through the telescope shows that the other planets are, like our own, the seat of perpetual activity, in which all the physical forces are at work, giving birth to incessant and varied changes.

During the last few months* astronomers have been specially interested in discussions relating to observations recently made in regard to the planet Mars, which has this year come within reach of our observation, only 44,552,229 miles (or 71,700,000 kilometers) away. Our attention has been fixed upon this planet the more, because, during several consecutive years, certain extraordinary meteorological and climatological events (extraordinary to us!) have been noticeable upon its surface. What we see there resembles what we see on earth; but one feels that it is an entirely different land, with different elements, different forces, different inhabitants. We see continents illuminated by the sun, the very same sun which sustains our lives also, -and these continents reflect towards us his light. There are darker seas, which absorb that light, and seem, from our

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This article was written October 22, 1890.

standpoint, like gray spots, more or less broken up; snows, which in winter accumulate around the pole, and melt gradually away in the spring and summer, in proportion as the solar heat rises higher; fogs, which extend over the plains and mask them from our view; fleeting clouds, carried away by the wind; sunny mornings; noons resplendent with light; vaporous evenings, falling asleep in the glories of twilight. All these pictures, observable in Mars, remind us of our earth, and suggest to us some sort of kinship between that world and ours; but if we look farther, the resemblance is presently transformed, and is even almost obliterated, by certain strange metamorphoses.

This essay is to be devoted to a summary of the investigations upon this subject, a summary as complete, however, as the limits will permit,- a subject eminently interesting from a double point of view, scientific and philosophic; and we shall dwell principally upon observations made during the current year.

I.

Assuredly we have all been greatly surprised, within the last few years, to see that the straight lines which cross the Martian continents, and bring all the seas into mutual communication, divide themselves into two parts at certain seasons. What are those rectilinear lines? Are they canals? This is the general belief; yet how can we explain the crossing of these watery currents by one another? There is an immense network of straight lines, more or less deep-colored. Can they be crevasses? They change in size. Are they vegetation? If so, it must be very rectilinear. Are they mists, or thick fogs? The explanation is difficult, at best; but it becomes still more so, when we see these enigmatical lines dividing themselves into two parts at certain seasons. No terrestrial phenomena can put us on the track of interpretation.

This year, moreover, not only have the canals been seen separating themselves into two parts, but lakes and seas have done the same. Take the following example.

The Lake of the Sun (Sol, or Soliel) is a small interior sea. It is very noticeable, and is situated at the intersection of the eighty-eighth longitudinal degree, with the twenty-fifth degree of south latitude. It measures seventeen degrees in length and fourteen in width, that is, 634 miles by 522