to construct two views of the planet, one representing the northern hemisphere and the other its southern.

Within the last twenty years several distinguished European astronomers have given considerable attention to the surface features of this planet. Among them we may mention Kunowski, Phillips, De Larne, Lockyer, Nasmyth, Secchi, Joynson, and Dawes. We here add some of the deductions of these astronomers.

The various spots upon the surface of Mars are found to be of different degrees of darkness, but each individual spot always retains the same degree of intensity. The spots sketched by Baer and Mädler in 1830 were observed, in 1862 and 1864, to be of the same relative degree of darkness.* Prof. Phillips, of Oxford, constructed a map of Mars from his own observations and those of Mr. Lockyer, doing for the equatorial regions what Beer and Mädler did for the polar.

Mr. Joynson inferred from his observations that there is a belt of water extending completely around the planet; but Mr. Lockyer concluded, from his own telescopic investigations, that this sea is broken in several places by land running north and south." This conclusion is substantiated by the observations of Baer and Mädler made in 1830, and by those of Prof. Phillips made in 1862 and in 1864.† Two views of Mars taken by Mr. Lockyer, in 1862,‡ show the same region about the south pole very distinctly, as well as the outlines of continents and seas.

The amount of labor necessary to form a map or a globe of Mars (or any other celestial body that revolves on an axis so as to present different views to the observer at different times) is very great. A series of observations and sketches of different views of the planet is made, the times being noted, and then it is necessary to reduce these, which lap on to one another, by mathematical calculation, to the centre of the disk, so as to arrive at the exact configuration of the objects seen. Thus, a sea or any other object seen and represented near the margin of the disk, would be more or less foreshadowed in its

* Monthly Notices, vol. xxv., p. 168.

t Ibid.

‡ Elementary Lessons in Astronomy, by J. N. Lockyer, p. 109.

various parts. Now the reader will at once see that a severe test of the accuracy of any drawings of a planet is to reduce them to the centre of the disk, and see if the same object seen at various distances from the margin really presents the same appearance when thus brought to that position. This calculation and construction are made by the same general principles that we employ in projecting a map of any country upon the earth.

The late Rev. W. R. Dawes was known to be one of the most accurate observers of whom the science of astronomy could boast. In 1852, and also in 1864, he made a series of drawings of Mars, using for the purpose, in 1852, a 6 inch refractor from the celebrated Munich works; in 1862, an 81 inch refractor by Alvan Clark, of Mass.; and in 1864, an 8 inch glass by Cooke and Sons. "The first peculiarity which strikes one in examining Dawes' views of Mars is the multiplicity of the details which they contain." We see in them not only the large and well-marked objects seen in other drawings, but numerous smaller streaks and patches which seem to have been introduced to fill up the picture. We need only say that when the test above referred to is applied here, it is found that every object represented in the picture has its appropriate place on the surface of Mars.

During the opposition in 1864, Mr. Dawes says "that several curious and interesting features were brought out," which he had never before seen so distinctly. One of the most remarkable of these was a long, narrow strait, or body of water running northeast and southwest in the northern hemisphere, which may be seen depicted in his figures. He first saw it in 1852, but not so distinctly with the telescope which he then used. Another object was the forked shading (also seen in the same sketches to the right of the strait.) This object was repeatedly seen in 1852 as an oval bay with a regular coast, but he did not then suspect it to be divided or irregular in its outline. This object appeared to him like two very wide mouths of rivers, which, however, he could never trace.*

*Elem. Lessons in Ast, p. 108.

Mr. Lockyer is of the opinion that the ruddy color of Mars is due to the absorption of his atmosphere. He says: "The land is generally reddish when the planet's atmosphere is clear; this is due to the absorption of the atmosphere, as is the color of the setting sun with us. The water appears of a greenish tinge."* But according to the spectroscopical observations of Mr. Huggins, the red color is not due to the absorptive power in the martial atmosphere. Indeed, if this were so, the snowy poles would lose their white color. Since we see them through the densest strata of his atmosphere, Mr. Huggins and Professor Miller find the lines in the spectrum of Mars to vary, depending, it seems, on the existence of clouds in the atmosphere. It was found in 1864, in August, that the spectrum of Mars diminished in a remarkable manner, owing to the existence of numerous dark lines in the more refrangible half of it, which, in November, were much fainter. The absence of these lines was, probably, owing to the existence of much fog and vapor in the atmosphere, which "would reflect from their surface a considerable portion of the incident light and so shade and conceal the lower strata of the planet's atmosphere and also its surface, where, probably, the ruddy color of the planet and the corresponding lines of absorption, enfeebling the blue and violet rays, have their origin. From a series of corresponding prismatic and telescopic observations of Mars, it might be possible to make out something of the meteorology of this planet."+

Professor Phillips thinks that the "enormous transfer of moisture from our hemisphere to the other, while the snows are melting round our pole and forming round the other, must generate over a great part of the planet heavy storms and great breadths of fluctuating clouds, which would not, as on the quickly rotating globe of Jupiter, gather into equatorial bands, but be more under the influence of prominent land and irregular tracts of ocean." We thus see the general resemblance between our atmosphere and that of our neighboring world, Mars. The resemblance between these two worlds extends

* See Monthly Notices, vol. xxv., p. 226, and the plates at the end of the volume. ↑ Monthly Notices, vol. xxv., p. 169.

further than to their atmospheric envelops. They both have land and water on their surfaces, they both revolve on their axes and around the sun; the inclination of their axes to the planes of their respective orbits is nearly the same (the earth's, 23° 28', Mars, 28° 51'); the change of seasons on both is the same;*

and, (shall we not add?) therefore, they both are, probably, inhabited.

Mr. Browning has prepared a globe representing Mars, on which are depicted the various bodies of land and water according to our present knowledge of the subject. Around each pole is a polar sea, the northern one being called Schröter sea, and the southern one Phillip's sea. The equatorial regions are mainly occupied by extensive continents. There are four: Dawes continent, Mädler continent, Secchi continent, and Herschel I. continent. The Hour-glass sea flows between Dawes continent and Herschel I. continent. Between Mädler continent and Dawes continent flows Dawes' strait, connecting a large southern ocean and a northern sea, named after Zyche. Herschel continent and Secchi continent are separated by Huggins inlet, flowing from a large southern sea called Maraldi sea. Besides the continents there are islands, and lands that are either islands or peninsulas, as yet, uncertain. Some of Dawes' observations indicate mountains so high in the equatorial regions as to be covered with snow the year round. Such is the martial world.

ART. VIII.-1. Reports of Criminal Trials in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.

2. Articles in the Newspapers on the Prevalence of Crime in New York and other cities.

* On Mars, in the northern hemisphere,

3. Essay on Crimes and Punishments. By M. BECCARIA. 4. De L'Esprit des Lois. MONTESQUIEU.

THE prevalence of crime is one of the worst calamities that can befall a nation; but it is as absurd to get into a fury at it, as at any other calamity. We should remember that the legislator and the moralist have no more right to be influenced by passion than the surgeon and the physician; the former, as well as the latter, are bound to consider the nature of the evil with which they have to deal. They must take into account its causes, as well as its consequences, if they would effect any permanent improvement.

It requires but little reflection to see that by pursuing the opposite course, either are more likely to do mischief than good; but it were better that both the legislator and the moralist should be rash and vindictive, than that the judge should be so. Many would dissent from this, we are aware; but it is not the less true that greater mischief has been done by cruel judges than by cruel laws. None will pretend that it was because the laws were worse in Nero's time, than at other periods, that Nero's reign was distinguished above all others for its atrocities.* The laws of England were not less friendly to women, than at any other period, when Henry VIII. put his wives to death, in order that he might indulge his lusts the more freely. Tyrants have never failed to find judges to suit their purposes; those who would not suit their purposes, they have not hesitated to treat, under one pretext or another, like the rest of their victims. Instance Seneca and Sir Thomas More, each of whom was put to death for no other real cause than that he was too honest and humane for the master whom fate had placed over him. When upright and thoughtful judges have not had tyrants of this relentless class to deal with, they have always done much to mitigate the undue severity of the laws; this is true, for example, of Chief-Justices Hale and Mansfield.

Upon the other hand, it were easy to point out judges, who, far from seeking to temper justice with mercy, have seemed to take a fiendish delight in shedding as much blood

* See Tacitus Anal., b. xi. and xiii; also, Hist. b. v.