Popular Science Monthly 



189 



fessor Percival Lowell established at 

 Flagstaff, Arizona, an observatory, 

 equipped with the best instruments ob- 

 tainable for the special study of Mars. 

 He has gathered about him a corps of 

 observers, who have become wonderfully 

 skilled in refined Alartian observation ; 

 he has the advantage of viewing the 

 planet in an atmosphere unsurpassed for 

 clearness ; he has made his observatory 

 the fountain-head of all important Mar- 

 tian discoveries. To him we owe our re- 

 markably detailed knowledge of the 

 planet's sur- 

 face m a r k - 

 ings. 



The Seven 



Hundred 



Canals — 



What Arc 



They? 



It was Pro- 

 fessor Lowell 

 who not only 

 con firmed 

 Schiaperelli's 

 discoveries of 

 the canals, 

 but who plot- 

 ted them ac- 

 curately year 

 after year 

 and added to 

 them until 

 now their 

 n u m b e r is 

 seven hun- 

 d r e d and 

 eighty - eight. 

 It is he who 

 or i g i nated 

 and for more 

 than twenty 

 years has de- 

 veloped the 

 theory that the canals are all that their 

 name implies — artificial waterways con- 

 structed by intelligent beings. Per- 

 haps it is because he has so persistently 

 heaped one piece of evidence upon an- 

 other to prove his theories that there is 

 any Mars controversy at all. His op- 

 ponents would probably be more in- 

 clined to accept the existence of the 

 canals if he had not interpreted the 



The distinguishing surface features of Mars are the 

 snow caps at the poles, vast russet areas and blue-green 

 regions between the poles, and the fine, straight lines 

 which are known as "canals." Dr. Lowell holds that 

 the straight lines are indeed "canals," and serve to 

 conduct the water from the melting snows at the poles 

 to the russet-brown areas, which are deserts, and cause 

 them to flourish. Dr. Lowell's theory finds confirma- 

 tion in the fact that portions of the russet-brown areas 

 assume the characteristic blue-green hue of vegetation 

 with the advent of Spring 



markings of Mars in the way that 

 seemed most natural and simple to him. 

 It is certain that they accept without 

 question the markings of other planets, 

 plotted under the same conditions. 



The significance of the canals is ap- 

 parent when it is considered that no- 

 where on Mars is there any water ex- 

 cept at the poles. Ages older than the 

 earth, Mars has arrived at a pitiful con- 

 dition which may best be described as 

 deadly aridity. Long ago much of the 

 fertile area of the planet shriveled to 



a n immense 

 desert. 

 Oceans, seas, 

 and lakes 

 leaked into 

 the interior 

 by way of 

 caverns and 

 c.r e V i c e s , 

 leaving, only 

 parched ba- 

 sins. The at- 

 m o s p h e r - 

 ic gases have 

 in part float- 

 ed away, so 

 that the air 

 has become 

 as rare and 

 as thin as we 

 should expect 

 to find it 

 miles above 

 the Rocky 

 ^Mountains. 

 Whatever wa- 

 ter still r e - 

 mains, gath- 

 e r s in the 

 form of snow 

 or hoar frost 

 at the poles. 

 Clearly, if 



Mars is inhabited, Professor Lowell ar- 

 gues, the one supreme task that engages 

 the attention of every thinking being on 

 the planet is the utilization of that pa- 

 thetically scant supply of water. If it 

 were possible to conduct the water of the 

 melting snows in spring to those portions 

 of the torrid and temperate zones that 

 would still bring forth, if properly nour- 

 ished, a race might save itself. 



