What is more, there is apparently none that does not lie at the junction of several canals.
Reversely, all the junctions appear to be provided with spots.

Plotted upon a globe they and their connecting canals make a most curious network over all the orange-ochre equatorial parts of the planet, a mass of lines and knots, the one marking being as omnipresent as the other." _Changes of Colour recognised._ During the oppositions of 1892 and 1894 it was fully recognised that a regular course of change occurred dependent upon the succession of the seasons, as had been first suggested by Schiaparelli.

As the polar snows melt the adjacent seas appear to overflow and spread out as far as the tropics, and are often seen to assume a distinctly green colour.

These remarkable changes and the extraordinary phenomena of perfect straight lines crossing each other over a large portion of the planet's surface, with the circular spots at their intersections, had such an appearance of artificiality that the idea that they were really 'canals' made by intelligent beings for purposes of irrigation, was first hinted at, and then adopted as the only intelligible explanation, by Mr.Lowell and a few other persons.

This at once seized upon the public imagination and was spread by the newspapers and magazines over the whole civilised world.
_Existence of Seas doubted._ At this time (1894) it began to be doubted whether there were any seas at all on Mars.