The Project Gutenberg EBook of Is Mars Habitable?, by Alfred Russel Wallace

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Is Mars Habitable?

Author: Alfred Russel Wallace

Release Date: January 28, 2004 [EBook #10855]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IS MARS HABITABLE? ***

Produced by Thaadd and the PG Distributed Proofreading Team

_Is Mars Habitable?_

A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF PROFESSOR PERCIVAL LOWELL'S BOOK
"MARS AND ITS CANALS," WITH AN ALTERNATIVE EXPLANATION

BY ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE F.R.S., ETC.

PREFACE.

This small volume was commenced as a review article on Professor
Percival Lowell's book, _Mars and its Canals_, with the object of
showing that the large amount of new and interesting facts contained in
this work did not invalidate the conclusion I had reached in 1902, and
stated in my book on _Man's Place in the Universe_, that Mars was not
habitable.

But the more complete presentation of the opposite view in the volume
now under discussion required a more detailed examination of the various
physical problems involved, and as the subject is one of great, popular,
as well as scientific interest, I determined to undertake the task.

This was rendered the more necessary by the fact that in July last
Professor Lowell published in the _Philosophical Magazine_ an elaborate
mathematical article claiming to demonstrate that, notwithstanding its
much greater distance from the sun and its excessively thin atmosphere,
Mars possessed a climate on the average equal to that of the south of
England, and in its polar and sub-polar regions even less severe than
that of the earth. Such a contention of course required to be dealt
with, and led me to collect information bearing upon temperature in all
its aspects, and so enlarging my criticism that I saw it would be
necessary to issue it in book form.

Two of my mathematical friends have pointed out the chief omission which
vitiates Professor Lowell's mathematical conclusions--that of a failure
to recognise the very large conservative and _cumulative_ effect of a
dense atmosphere. This very point however I had already myself discussed
in Chapter VI., and by means of some