Mary Proctor

“ Canals a thousand miles long and twenty miles wide are simply beyond our comprehension. Even though we are aware of the fact that, owing to the mass of the planet being a little less than one-ninth of the earth's mass, a rock which here weighs one hundred pounds would, there only weigh thirty-eight pounds, engineering operations being in consequence less arduous than here, yet we can scarcely imagine the inhabitants of Mars capable of accomplishing this Herculean task within the short interval of two years. ”

“ A Martian cycle, that is a round of about sixteen years, must have been through by the same observer before definitive judgment can be pronounced. Such a cycle now stands complete at Flagstaff, and they prove conclusively by the records that although Mars has been observed four times previously at the same season of the Martian year at which these two new canals appeared, no such canals then existed. ”

“ Furthermore, to be conclusive, the observations must all have been made by the same observer working under like conditions, and grown in consequence, familiar with every detail of the disk, since the personal equation including by that term the site, instrumental methods and equipment,is always a factor. ”