Page:Is Mars habitable - Wallace 1907.djvu/27

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In 1905 Mr. Lowell published an illustrated volume giving a full account of his observations of Mars from 1894 to 1903, chiefly for the use of astronomers; and he has now given us a popular volume summarising the whole of his work on the planet, and published both in America and England by the Macmillan Company. This very interesting volume is fully illustrated with twenty plates, four of them coloured, and more than forty figures in the text, showing the great variety of details from which the larger general maps have been constructed.

But what renders this work especially interesting to all intelligent readers is, that the author has here, for the first time, fully set forth his views both as to the habitability of Mars and as to its being actually inhabited by beings comparable with ourselves in intellect. The larger part of the work is in fact devoted to a detailed description of what he terms the 'Non-natural Features' of the planet's surface, including especially a full account of the 'Canals,' single and double; the 'Oases,' as he terms the dark spots at their intersections; and the varying visibility of both, depending partly on the Martian seasons; while the five concluding chapters deal with the possibility of animal