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There Go the Ships
by George Shirley

Poverty - by James Platt

Percival Lowell

(March 13, 1855 - November 12, 1916)
Percival Lowell was most famous as an astronomer who extensively studied the so-called canals on Mars. The four papers reproduced via the links above were written by him on this subject.

He was American, graduate of Harvard, with a brother and sister who were also notable in their own fields. During a period of extensive travel in the Far East, he spent significant periods in Japan, writing books on Japanese religion, behavior and psychology.

He dedicated himself to astronomy from 1893, including founding an observatory named after him. He is buried near this observatory. Craters on the Moon and Mars are also named after him.

He spent fifteen years studying Mars, including making detailed drawings. Apart from a number of short papers (including those above), he put down his views in a number of books including, Mars (1895), Mars as the Abode of Life (1908) and Mars and its Canals (1911). The most important part of this views was that Mars sustained intelligent life, which he felt was born out by the existence of the canals. He felt that as the planed was dying, its people had had to sink the canals to obtain melt water from the poles.

Observations from the sixty inch Mount Wilson Observatory in 1909 showed geological features probably caused by erosion. However, this still did not disprove the existence of the canals. This was not to take place until the Mariner 4 pictures taken in 1965. It is now believed that the canals were in fact an optical illusion.