Mars and its Canals

Percival Lowell

Published by Macmillan Company, New York, 1906

About this Item

23 x 16 cm. Octavo. xv 393pp [1]. Bound in green cloth. Extensively illustrated with 16 plates including 4 in color, photographs, maps, as well as in-text woodcuts. Gilt top foredge. First edition with Published December, 1906 on copyright page and no additional printings noted. Corners of the boards as well as the head of the spine are bumped. Rear gutter starting. Some toning to the front endpapers. Some darkening to the spine. Astronomer Percival Lowell popularized the hypothesis of the canals of Mars as evidence of intellegent extraterrestrial life. Lowell and his students were working at the limits of their telescope and they had to be trained (and psychologically primed) to see the canals. As instruments advanced, it became harder for other astronomers to see Lowell's canals. He observed a "wave of darkening" passing from the pole through the equator of Mars and took this as evidence of alien crops changing color with the seasons as on Earth. The idea of advanced life on Mars persisted into the mid 20th century, with the wave of darkening being sited as evidence. Seller Inventory # 63287

Bibliographic Details

Title: Mars and its Canals

Publisher: Macmillan Company, New York

Publication Date: 1906

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Very Good

Edition: First edition.