slightest idea," hastily adding, "But you don't look it!" Less commendable than this conventional nescience, but unfortunately more to the point, is the evidence of prying scientific curiosity. Shrewdly divined as much as detected by Schiaparelli, made more certain by the crow's-feet disclosed at Flagstaff, and corroborated by the testimony of the spectroscope there, her isochronism of rotation and revolution lies beyond a doubt. Attraction to her lord has conquered at last her who was the cynosure of all. Venus, in her old age, stares forever at the Sun, and we all know how ill an aging beauty can support a garish light.
Mercury has been brought to a like pass. This was evident even before the facts came out about Venus, for Venus, true to her instincts, shields herself with a veil of air which largely baffles man's too curious gaze. Mercury, on the other hand, offers no objection to observation. When looked for at the proper time, his markings are quite distinct, dark, broken lines suggesting cracks. Schiaparelli, again, was the first to perceive the true state of the case, and his observations were independently confirmed and extended at Flagstaff in 1896. In so doing the latter disclosed a very interesting fact. It was evident that the markings held in general a definite fixed position upon the illuminated part of the disk, showing that the planet kept the same face always to the Sun. But systematic observation, con-
