LOWELL, PERCIVAL (1855-1916) - — Mars And Its Canals By Percival Lowell, A.B., LL.D.

New York : Macmillan Company 1906 . 0. A very good tight binding. First Edition. 8vo. pp.xv./[1p.]/pp.393/[2pp. - Adverts] . Well illustrated with frontis and a further 15 pages of plates (one double), as well as numerous black and white illustrations within the text. Green cloth with clear gilt titles to front board and spine. Top & tail rubbed and carefully strengthened. Previous owner's details to front endpaper: "R. A. Hales..1950". Clean text and illustrations throughout. Contents: pt. 1. Natural features -- pt. 2. Non-natural features -- pt. 3. The canals in action -- pt. 4. Explanation. ** "Percival Lowell (March 13, 1855 – November 12, 1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System. He founded the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, and formed the beginning of the effort that led to the discovery of Pluto 14 years after his death..The existence of canal-like features was definitively disproved in the 1960s by NASA's Mariner missions. Mariner 4, 6 and 7, and the Mariner 9 orbiter (1972), did not capture images of canals but instead showed a cratered Martian surface. Today, the surface markings taken to be canals are regarded as an optical illusion.." - See Wikipedia.