IN FOCUS

June 11, 2007

100 Years Ago in Scientific American - The Riddle of Mars

Mars and Its Canals. By Percival Lowell. Illustrated. The Macmillan Company. New York and London, 1907. Octavo. Pp. 393.

Full review here:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=1C26A61F-E7F2-99DF-3A3A10BD449164B9

To quote:

Most remarkable is the system which the canals form. They are most wonderfully inter-connected. The system covers the whole surface of the planet, dark areas and light areas alike, in a way that renders impossible the supposition that any natural force produced the canals. The system, after meshing the surface in its entirety, runs straight into the polar caps. To Prof. Lowell it is an irrigation system whose aim is the tapping of the snow caps for the water there released, and then its distribution over the Martian disk.