I have before me a
picture which I have made of all this planet's loops from 1875 to
1892, and it forms the most curiously intertwined set of curves you
can imagine,--rather pretty, though not regular, the loops on one side
being much larger than those on the other. I would show the picture
here, but it is too large. One of these days, it will be given in a
book I am going to write about Mars, who is quite important enough to
have a book all to himself. I want you, now, to understand me that
Mars really does travel in a most complicated path, when you consider
the earth as at rest. If a perfect picture of all his loopings and
twistings since astronomy began could be drawn,--even on a sheet of
paper as large as the floor of a room,--the curves would so interlace
that you would not be able to track them out, but be always leaving
the true track and getting upon one crossing it slightly aslant,--just
like the lines by which trains are made to run easily off one
track on to another.
The unfortunate astronomers of old times, who had to explain, _if they
could_, this complicated behavior of Mars (and of other planets, too),
were quite beaten.
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