Caption: CELEBRATED CONTROVERSY
Percival Lowell was perhaps the most vocal proponent of intelligent life on Mars.
Darwin, not
Percival Lowell, is the key influence on the Martian image.
Strauss,
Percival Lowell: The Culture and Science of a Boston Brahmin, Harvard University Press, 2001
Furthermore, a remarkable expedition was directed by
Percival Lowell in the Taracapa-Atacama desert region of Chile, at an altitude of 1400m [4593ft], where rain never falls.
Drawn by the region's clean air, wealthy Bostonian
Percival Lowell built an observatory on the hill in 1894, and it was here, in 1930, that the planet Pluto was discovered.
Wells,
Percival Lowell, and their own famous fictional Martian worlds.
Schiaparelli (1835-1910) (1) was the leading observer of Mars of the late nineteenth century (Figure 1), and he enjoyed a long correspondence with
Percival Lowell (1855-1916).
Astronomer
Percival Lowell's effort at the start of the 20th century to establish the reality of canals on Mars starkly illustrates this point, according to Galison.
"Last Contact" and "Certainly Now" would be the last lines ever penned by
Percival Lowell in his observing logbook, on November 11,1916.
Around the turn of the century, when
Percival Lowell was asserting that features he "observed" on the surface of Mars represented artificially constructed canals, some astronomy students expressed confidence that they, too, would be able to see the canals when they became sufficiently competent observers.
It was built by the renowned firm of Alvan Clark & Sons for
Percival Lowell, the Mars enthusiast and wealthy black sheep of a patrician Boston family.
As William Sheehan points out in The Planet Mars: A History of Observation & Discovery, although
Percival Lowell's canal theory had largely fallen into disrepute, his notions about water, atmosphere, and vegetation on Mars still persisted, at least in popular imagination.