1906 1st Edtn MARS AND IT'S CANALS By Percival Lowell Illus. Very Good Cosmology

1906 1st Edition , 
MARS AND IT'S CANALS

By Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell (March 13, 1855 – November 12, 1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death. He was particularly interested in the canals of Mars, as drawn by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, who was director of the Milan Observatory.
Although Lowell's theories of the Martian canals, of surface features on Venus, and of Planet X are now discredited, his practice of building observatories at the position where they would best function has been adopted as a principle. He also established the program and setting which made the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh possible. Lowell has been described by other planetary scientists as "the most influential popularizer of planetary science in America before Carl Sagan". While eventually disproved, Lowell's vision of the Martian canals, as an artifact of an ancient civilization making a desperate last effort to survive, significantly influences the development of science fiction – starting with H. G. Wells' influential 1898 novel The War of the Worlds, which made the further logical inference that creatures from a dying planet might seek to invade Earth.

Illustrated By: N/A


Format: Hardcover,
Language: English
Dust Jacket: No Jacket, Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

Published By: The MacMillan Company, London

quarto (4to 9+1⁄2 × 12 241 × 305),Pages 393

ISBN:

For some fifteen years (1893 to about 1908) Lowell studied Mars extensively, making intricate drawings of the surface markings as he perceived them. Lowell published his views in three books: Mars (1895), Mars and Its Canals (1906), and Mars As the Abode of Life (1908). With these writings, Lowell more than anyone else popularized the long-held belief that these markings showed that Mars sustained intelligent life forms. His works include a detailed description of what he termed the "non-natural features" of the planet's surface, including especially a full account of the "canals," single and double; the "oases," as he termed the dark spots at their intersections; and the varying visibility of both, depending partly on the Martian seasons. He theorized that an advanced but desperate culture had built the canals to tap Mars' polar ice caps, the last source of water on an inexorably drying planet



SKU: BTETM0002166
Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 2Kg