When examining the Palm of the hand and farther on, the Mounts. I had occasion to delimit the only portion of the Palm not included in the space occupied by the Mounts and to give it its various names and its subdivision.

The Hollow of the Hand, The Palm Proper, is more scientifically designated as the Plain of Mars, as it connects at both ends with those Upper and Lower Mounts of Mars, concerning which there has been so much discussion and dissension among Modern Palmists, dissensions which the rather confusing and contradictory statements of Des-barrolles have not helped to settle. I shall try now to harmonize these warring elements and to get at the inward thought of the Master on the subject.

Desbarrolles never acknowledged, it it true, the existence of two Mounts of Mars, one expressing active courage - aggressiveness; the other, passive cour-age - resistance: or to apply the readings to more current circumstances: energy and resignation. After limiting the meaning of his only Mount of Mars - the one between the Mount of Mercury and the Mount of the Moon - to passive courage and resistance, he soon forgets this narrow interpretation and extends it so as to include energy and steadfast purposes. The only feature peculiar to of the Upper Mount of Mars I insist upon and which he placed elsewhere - and even on that point he is very vacillating in his Revelations Completes - is aggressiveness, generally of an undesirable nature and verging toward actual violence. This he placed, not under the Mount of Jupiter, as the London Chiro-logical Society insists on doing, but over the whole of the Plain of Mars. whose flat or bulging aspect indicated to him the absence or the presence of that ultra combative tendency that is ever fond of "spoiling something or somebody," be he friend or foe.

Of the bulge so frequently met with, below the Mount of Jupiter and along the Angle of the Thumb, and which I insist upon calling the Lower Mount of Mars - not a single word in Desbarrolles' books, and. in his readings of cases, this portion of the Palm is invariably included within the Mount of Venus.

Now I feel no hesitation to admit that the Plain of Mars has to be studied closely in connection with aggressive courage whenever, instead of forming a more or less marked hollow, it bulges in what might be justly called a threatening fashion. I already called your attention to the fact that anatomically this portion of the Palm contains a radiating center of nervous fibres and numerous Pacinian Corpuscles. It is therefore a very excitable spot in the hand and the Ancient Chiromants had shrewdly discovered its peculiarities when they gave the name of Cross of Battle to the large cross met occasionally at the very middle of the Palm. But this admission on my part does not in any way modify my definitions of both Mounts of Mars, the Upper One so naturally placed between the clever Mount of Mercury and the dreamy Mount of the Moon, to help the first in its conquest of worldly influence, to protect the second against the excess of its langorous laziness; the Lower One, between the Mount of Jupiter, whose ambition it strengthens by this secret of success: Perseverance, and the Mount of Venus, whose loving instincts it completes by the gift of Constancy, If logic is ever to be listened to in the study of the hand, I think this is the time to give it the right of way and to accept its clear dicta, which are not in any way contrary to the intelligent reading of Desbarrolles' declarations on the subject.

I understand that this question of the Mounts of Mars is the shiboleth that admits or rejects candidacy to the honors of Membership or Felluw-ship in the London Chirological Society: but in spite of the terrible fate in store for those who decline to thus bow before the new-fangled Gessler's Cap, I thought I would have my straightforward say on the matter, advienne que pourra. especially since the best of modern French Palmists, Dr. Papus, Madame de Thebes, Marius Decrespe, etc., do me the honor of agreeing with me on this point.

As space is somewhat valuable in this volume and I see no necessity for uselessly repeating myself, I must refer you for the general Chirognomical observations concerning the Plain of Mars or Palm Proper to the Sixth Subhead in my Chapter on the Hand as a Whole, page 39; in fact there are many details concerning it included in the statements contained in pp. 37 to 39. included. I shall assume that those have been carefully studied and remembered, and introduce to you my readings of