Mars as the Abode of Life (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Mars as the Abode of Life

IN 1906 Professor Lowell was asked by the trustee of the Lowell Institute to deliver a course of lectures there upon the planet Mars. Eleven years had elapsed since, at the invitation of the former trustee, he had done the like. When the time came for their delivery unusual interest was manifested, the course proving the most thronged of any ever given before the Insti tute. So great was the demand for seats that the hall could not contain the crowd, and the lectures had to be repeated in the afternoons, to audiences almost as large.

The eight lectures were then published, with Slight changes, in six papers in the Century Magazine, and were subsequently wanted by Macmillan and Com pany for issuance in book form.

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MARS AS THE ABODE OF LIFE FOREWORD UP to the middle of the nineteenth century, astronomy was busied with motions. The wanderings of the planets in their courses attracted attention, and held thought to the practical exclusion of all else concerning them. It was to problems of this character that the great names of the past - Newton, Huygens, Laplace - were linked. But when the century that has gone was halfway through its course, a change came over the spirit of the investigation; with the advance in physics celestial searchers began to concern themselves with matter, too. Gravitational astronomy had regarded the planets from the point of view of how they act; physical astronomy is intent upon what they are. One outcome of this more intimate acquaintance is the new study with which the present papers deal: the evolution of the planets regarded as worlds. Such research has to do not merely with the aggregation of material, but with its subsequent metamorphoses

Table of Contents

CONTENTS; Foreword; PAGE I; PART I; CHAPTER; I The Genesis of a World; Catastrophic origin Meteorites Meteorite worship; Meteoric constitution of solar system Analogy of cataclysm to new stars (Novae) The meteorites gravitate together, generating heat Amount of heat depends on the mass of the body Substances vary with heat and pressure Mass the fundamental factor Cooling Life-history depends on size Planetologic eras; Present aspects of the planets our guide Geologic part of planetology Landscape the result of cooling Mountains in proportion to mass Volcanic phenomena ; Relative roughness of Earth, Moon, and Mars Mountains absent on Mars Slant illumination Importance to astronomers Applied to Mars Not indicative of mountains Two or three thousand feet limit of elevation on Mars; xii; CONTENTS; CHAPTER PACE; Internal heat of the three bodies 23 Darwinian theory of lunar origin , , , ,26 Confirmed by lunar surface 26; Probable comparative