Geographers of Mars: Cartographic inscription and exploration narrative in Late Victorian representations of the Red Planet

ISIS

Volumn 96, Issue 4, 2005, Pages 477-506

  Lane, K Maria D ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; ASTRONOMY; AUDIOVISUAL EQUIPMENT; GEOGRAPHY; HISTORY; HUMAN;

ASTRONOMY; GEOGRAPHY; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MAPS; MARS;

EID: 33645778585     PISSN: 00211753     EISSN: 15456994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/498590     Document Type: Review

References (178)

1. Steven J. Dick, The Biological Universe: The Twentieth-Century Extraterrestrial Life Debate and the Limits of Science (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996);
2. Michael J. Crowe, The Extraterrestrial Life Debate, 1750-1900: The Idea of a Plurality of Worlds from Kant to Lowell (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1986);
3. Karl S. Guthke, The Last Frontier: Imagining Other Worlds, from the Copernican Revolution to Modern Science Fiction, trans. Helen Atkins (Ithaca, N.Y./London: Cornell Univ. Press, 1983);
4. William Sheehan, Planets and Perception (Tucson: Univ. Arizona Press, 1988);
5. Norriss S. Hetherington, "Percival Lowell: Scientist or Interloper?" Journal of the History of Ideas, 1981, 42:159-161;
6. and Hetherington, "Amateur versus Professional: The British Astronomical Association and the Controversy over Canals on Mars," Journal of the British Astronomical Association, 1976, 86:303-308.
7. David Strauss has written the most comprehensive analysis of Lowell's Mars science: Percival Lowell: The Culture and Science of a Boston Brahmin (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 2001) examines Lowell's social maneuvers, his commitment to the Spencerian theory of evolution, and his treatment at the hands of hostile professional astronomers.
8. For Lowell's success as a popularizer see also William Graves Hoyt, Lowell and Mars (Tucson: Univ. Arizona Press, 1976).
9. As will be discussed later, Mars claims were also recorded graphically in the spectrum, which depicted data regarding atmospheric composition; this later proved critical in the scientific debate about Mars's habitability. The map, however, appealed to popular audiences in a way that the spectrum, which was held to be a specialists' tool, never did, and therefore it played a unique role in the popularization of the inhabited-Mars hypothesis.
10. The term "areography" - which cleverly modified the word "geography" by substituting the Greek name for Mars, "Ares," for the Greek name for Earth, "Geos" - was used as early as 1868 by R. A. Proctor. See Bernard Lightman, "The Visual Theology of Victorian Popularizers of Science: From Reverent Eye to Chemical Retina," Isis, 2000, 91:651-680.
11. See, e.g., N. E. Green, "Notes on the Coming Opposition of Mars," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1877, 37:424;
12. Green, "The Approaching Opposition of Mars," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ibid., 1879, 39:433;
13. E. Walter Maunder, "Mars Section," J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 1892, 2:423-427;
14. and Bernard E. Cammell, "Mars Section, 1894," ibid., 1894, 4:395-397.
15. The German astronomers Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich Madler produced the first map of Mars in 1840, portraying surface features on a latitude/longitude grid and assigning alphabetical labels to those markings they considered permanent; see William Sheehan, The Planet Mars: A History of Observation and Discovery (Tucson: Univ. Arizona Press, 1996). Proctor's 1867 map was the first to introduce proper names for the surface features;
16. see Lightman, "Visual Theology of Victorian Popularizers of Science" (cit. n. 4). Although an opposition occurs every twenty-six months when Earth swings past Mars, a perihelic opposition occurs only once every fifteen years or so.
17. For Green's description of the observing conditions see "Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, November 8, 1877," Astronomical Register, 1877, 15:309-319;
18. for his map see Nathaniel Green, "Chart of Mars from Drawings at Madeira in 1877,"
19. map published with "Observations of Mars, at Madeira, in August and September 1877," Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1879, 44:123-140.
20. On Green's work and reputation see Richard McKim, "Nathaniel Everett Green: Artist and Astronomer," J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 2004, 114:13-23;
21. and Richard McKim, "In Memoriam: Nathaniel E. Green, F.R.A.S.," J. Brit. Astron. Assoc. Ibid., 1899, 10:75-77.
22. Schiaparelli's "Mappa Areographica" was published as Table 3 in G. V. Schiaparelli, "Osservazioni Astronomiche e Fisiche sull'Asse di Rotazione e sulla Topografia del Pianeta Marte Fatte nella Reale Specola di Brera in Milano coll'Equatoreale di Merz Durante l'Opposizione del 1877: Memoria del Socio G. V. Schiaparelli," Atti della Reale Accademia dei Lincei: Memorie della Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali, 1877-1878, 3:3-136
23. (hereafter cited as Schiaparelli, "Osservazioni del 1877");
24. for Green's description see Green, "Observations of Mars," p. 123.
25. "Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, April 12, 1878," Astron. Reg., 1878, 16:115-123;
26. Nathaniel E. Green to G. V. Schiaparelli, 15 Mar. 1878, Corrispondenza Scientifica, Archivo dell'Osservatorio de Brera; and Schiaparelli to Otto Struve, 6 July 1878, in Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Corrispondenza su Marte di Giovanni Virginia Schiaparelli. 2 vols., Vol. 1: 1877-1889 (Pisa: Domus Galilaeana, 1963), pp. 14-18.
27. See Lightman, "Visual Theology of Victorian Popularizers of Science" (cit. n. 4), for a discussion of Proctor's reliance on Dawes.
28. Regarding features that Green omitted despite his colleagues' views see "Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, April 12, 1878";
29. and "Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, December 13, 1878," Astron. Reg., 1879, 17:1-20.
30. On Green's contacts with other Mars astronomers and his sketching and mapping practices see McKim, "Nathaniel Everett Green" (cit. n. 7);
31. and Green, "Observations of Mars" (cit. n. 7).
32. For Schiaparelli's communications with his colleagues during the 1877 observations see esp. Schiaparelli to François Terby, 20 Nov. 1877, and Schiaparelli to Struve, 23 Nov. 1877, 4 Jan. 1878, 6 July 1878, in Corrispondenza su Marte, Vol. 1 (cit. n. 9), pp. 5-6, 6-7, 10-14, 14-18.
33. His observations are recorded in Giovanni Schiaparelli, "Refrattore di Merz, Tomo I, Minute Originali delle Osservazioni dal 14 Agosto 1875 al 31 Agosto 1877,"
34. and "Rifrattore di Merz, Tomo II, Minute Originali delle Osservazioni del 1 Settembre 1877 al 13 Febbraio 1879," handwritten logbooks, Fondo Schiaparelli, Archivo Storico, Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera.
35. For the full report see Schiaparelli, "Osservazioni del 1877."
36. All' astronomo G. V. Schiaparelli: Omaggio, 30 giugno 1860-30 giugno 1900 (Milan: Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, 1900).
37. Crowe argues in The Extraterrestrial Life Debate (cit. n. 1) that Schiaparelli was a pluralist, despite his oft-stated (and oft-cited) neutrality on the issue of Mars's habitability. Although Crowe does not argue that Schiaparelli intended to portray Mars as having an inhabited landscape, he shows that throughout his career Schiaparelli generally aligned himself with the position of the pluralists.
38. Green, "Observations of Mars" (cit. n. 7);
39. "Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, April 14, 1882," Astron. Reg., 1882, 20:101-111;
40. and "Schiaparelli's Observations of Mars," Observatory, 1882, 5:138-143.
41. Green's deference here notwithstanding, relations between amateurs and professionals were rarely so uncomplicated during the Mars debates. As will be discussed later, many of those who observed Mars regularly were amateurs who used telescopes substantially weaker than those of their professional counterparts.
42. Green, "Observations of Mars" (cit. n. 7), p. 130;
43. "Report on the Meeting of the Association held December 31, 1890," J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 1890, 1:110-114, on pp. 110-111;
44. and "Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, April 12, 1878" (cit. n. 9), p. 123 (James Ludovic Lindsay served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1878 and 1879).
45. For a full discussion of Green's identity as a professional artist see McKim, "Nathaniel Everett Green" (cit. n. 7).
46. David Gill, "The Nomenclature of Markings on Mars," Astron. Reg., 1879, 17:95.
47. "Mappa Areographica," published as Table 3 in Schiaparelli
48. "Osservazioni del 1877."
49. See Lightman, "Visual Theology of Victorian Popularizers of Science" (cit. n. 4), for a complete discussion of Proctor's maps.
50. For Flammarion's adjustments see Jürgen Blunck, Mars and Its Satellites: A Detailed Commentary on the Nomenclature (Hicksville, N.Y.: Exposition, 1977).
51. William Noble, "Names of Markings on Mars," Astron. Reg., 1879, 17:95-96, on p. 96;
52. A. Marth, "Nomenclature of Markings Visible upon the Planet Mars," Astron. Reg. ibid., pp. 24-25, on p. 24;
53. E. B. Fennessy, "Nomenclature of Markings on Mars," Astron. Reg. ibid., p. 90;
54. and Herbert Sadler, "Nomenclature of Markings Visible upon the Planet Mars," Astron. Reg. ibid., p. 25.
55. Noble, "Names of Markings on Mars," p. 96.
56. Green, "Approaching Opposition of Mars" (cit. n. 5), p. 433;
57. G. V. Schiaparelli, "Osservazioni Astronomiche e Fisiche sull'Asse di Rotazione e sulla Topografia del Pianeta Marte Fatte nella Reale Specola di Brera in Milano coll'Equatoreale di Merz: Memoria Seconda del Socio G. V. Schiaparelli," Atti Reale Accad. Lincei, 1880-1881, 3:3-109;
58. Schiaparelli, "Osservazioni Astronomiche e Fisiche sull'Asse di Rotazione e sulla Topografia del Pianeta Marte Fatte nella Reale Specola di Brera in Milano coll'Equatoreale di Merz: Memoria Terza del Socio G. V. Schiaparelli (Opposizione 1881-1882)," Atti Reale Accad. Lincei ibid., 1886, 4:281-373;
59. Schiaparelli, "Osservazioni Astronomiche e Fisiche sull'Asse di Rotazione e sulla Topografia del Pianeta Marte Fatte nella Reale Specola di Brera in Milano coll'Equatoreale di Merz: Memoria Quarta del Socio G. V. Schiaparelli (Opposizione 1883-1884)," Atti Reale Accad. Lincei ibid., 1895-1896, 5:183-240;
60. "The Canals on Mars," Astron. Reg., 1886, 24:268 (reporting Terby's findings);
61. and J. Perrotin, "Observation des Canaux de Mars Faite a l'Observatoire de Nice," Observatory, 1886, 9:364-365.
62. Hoyt, Lowell and Mars (cit. n. 2).
63. Simon Newcomb to Percival Lowell, 30 Oct. 1905, Simon Newcomb Papers, United States Library of Congress Manuscript Division, Washington, D.C.; and W. W. Payne, "The 'Canals' of Mars," Popular Astronomy, 1904, 12:365-375, on p. 366.
64. "French Clergyman Combats Theory of Prof. Lowell as to Presence of Some Sort of Intelligent Life on Planet Mars," Boston Sunday Herald, 4 Aug. 1907,
65. magazine section. See Strauss, Percival Lowell (cit. n. 2), for a detailed discussion of how American and British astronomers acted in concert to isolate Lowell.
66. Felix Driver, "Exploration by Warfare: Henry Morton Stanley and His Critics," in Geography Militant: Cultures of Exploration and Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), pp. 117-145;
67. and Thomas J. Bassett and Philip W. Porter, '"From the Best Authorities': The Mountains of Kong in the Cartography of West Africa," Journal of African History, 1991, 32:367-413.
68. For a set of now-classic works exploring the unique authority of the map as a visual text see J. B. Harley, The New Nature of Maps: Essays in the History of Cartography, ed. Paul Laxton (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2001).
69. Simon Ryan, The Cartographic Eye: How Explorers Saw Australia (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1996);
70. and Matthew H. Edney, Mapping an Empire: The Geographical Construction of British India, 1765-1843 (Chicago/London: Univ. Chicago Press, 1997).
71. For a detailed discussion of the way, beginning in 1905, photographic evidence altered the debates over Mars see Jennifer Tucker, "Science Illustrated: Photographic Evidence and Social Practice in England, 1870-1920" (Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins Univ., 1996), Ch. 4.
72. For a discussion of the geographic "gaze" see Gillian Rose, "Geography as the Science of Observation: The Landscape, the Gaze, and Masculinity," in Nature and Science: Essays in the History of Geographical Knowledge, ed. Felix Driver and Rose (Research Series, 28) (Bristol: Historical Geography Research Group, 1992), pp. 8-18.
73. The definitive account of the debate over telescope size is John Lankford, "Amateurs versus Professionals: The Controversy over Telescope Size in Late Victorian Science," Isis, 1981, 72:11-28.
74. See also Strauss, Percival Lowell (cit. n. 2);
75. Crowe, Extraterrestrial Life Debate (cit. n. 1);
76. Hoyt, Lowell and Mars (cit. n. 2);
77. and SimonSchaffer, "Astronomers Mark Time: Discipline and the Personal Equation," Science In Context, 1988, 2:115-145.
78. See Lankford, "Amateurs versus Professionals,"
79. and Strauss, Percival Lowell, for detailed analyses of how individual astronomers maneuvered during these arguments.
80. Green, "Observations of Mars" (cit. n. 7), p. 38;
81. and William H. Pickering, "Changes and Floods on Mars," in Mars (1892; Boston: Gorham, 1921), pp. 42-55, on p. 55.
82. See Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Empire and the Sun: Victorian Solar Eclipse Expeditions (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Univ. Press, 2002), for a thorough overview of the practices and representations of solar eclipse expeditions.
83. P. B. Molesworth, "Observations of Mars, 1903," Monthly Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 1905, 65:825-841, on p. 839.
84. Praise for Molesworth's reports appears in Eugene Antoniadi, "Mars Section, First Interim Report for 1898-1899," J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 1899, 9:156-158;
85. and Antoniadi, "Section for the Observation of Mars: Report of the Section, 1900-1901," Memoirs of the British Astronomical Association, 1903, 11:85-142.
86. Percival Lowell, Mars (Boston/New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1895), p. v.
87. See also A. E. Douglass, "The Lowell Observatory and Its Work," Pop. Astron., 1895, 2:395-402.
88. Simon Newcomb, "Astronomy," in The New Volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica: Constituting in Combination with the Existing Volumes of the Ninth Edition the Tenth Edition of That Work, and Also Supplying a New, Distinctive, and Independent Library of Reference Dealing with Recent Events and Developments (Edinburgh/London: Black, 1902), Vol. 25, pp. 728-756, on p. 728. The Lick Observatory, situated atop California's Mount Hamilton, was completed in 1888.
89. On Mars-related tropical expeditions see, e.g., Green, "Observations of Mars" (cit. n. 7);
90. David Gill, "Mr. David Gill's Expedition to Ascension: Correspondence and Reports," Month. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 1877, 38:1-10;
91. Percival Lowell, "On the Climatic Causes of the Removal of the Lowell Observatory to and from Mexico," Observatory, 1897, 20:401-404;
92. and "Lowell Expedition to the Andes," Observatory ibid., 1907, 30:429.
93. C. E. Burton, "Notes on the Aspects of Mars in 1882," Scientific Transactions of the Royal Dublin Society, 1883, 1:301-305, on p. 304; and Lowell to E. Walter Maunder, 28 Nov. 1903, Lowell Observatory Archives, Flagstaff, Arizona.
94. John F. W. Herschel, Outlines of Astronomy, 10th ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1875).
95. Giovanni Schiaparelli, "The Planet Mars [Pt. 1]," Astronomy and Astro-Physics, 1894, 13:635-640, on p. 640 (emphasis added).
96. That Mars's "polar snows" "melted" was presented as common knowledge in general publications such as Reynolds's Universal Atlas of Astronomy, Geology, Physical Geography, the Vegetable Kingdom, and Natural Philosophy (London: Reynolds, 1876);
97. George F. Chambers, A Handbook of Descriptive Astronomy, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1877);
98. and Simon Newcomb and Edward S. Holden, Astronomy for Schools and Colleges (New York: Holt, 1879).
99. For an objection to this assumption see Marsden Manson, "The Climate of Mars," Pop. Astron., 1895, 2:371-374.
100. William H. Pickering, "Mars," Astron. Astro-Phys., 1892, 11:668-675;
101. Pickering, "Colors Exhibited by the Planet Mars," Astron. Astro-phys. ibid., pp. 449-453;
102. and Robert S. Ball, In the High Heavens (London: Isbister, 1893), p. 145.
103. On the absence of polarized light reflections see G. H. Lepper, "An Examination of the Modern Views as to the Real Nature of the Markings of Mars," J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 1905, 15:133-137.
104. On the missing glint of sunlight on water see J. R. Holt, "The Solar Image Reflected in the Seas of Mars," Astron. Astro-Phys., 1894, 13:257-258;
105. and "An Image of the Sun on the Martian Seas," J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 1894, 4:260-261.
106. For a detailed discussion of the heated debates over the spectrum of Mars see David H. DeVorkin, "W. W. Campbell's Spectroscopic Study of the Martian Atmosphere," Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 1977, 18:37-53.
107. On matters of eyesight or perception see Simon Newcomb, "The Optical and Psychological Principles Involved in the Interpretation of the So-Called Canals of Mars," Astrophysical Journal, 1907, 26:1-17;
108. E. Walter Maunder and Annie S. D. Maunder, "Some Experiments on the Limits of Vision for Lines and Spots as Applicable to the Question of the Actuality of the Canals of Mars," J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 1903, 13:344-351;
109. and Percival Lowell, "On the Kind of Eye Needed for the Detection of Planetary Detail," Pop. Astron., 1905, 13:92-94.
110. See also Sheehan, Planets and Perception (cit. n. 1).
111. On the characteristics of various instruments see Lowell, "Double Canals and the Separative Powers of Glasses," Pop. Astron., 1904, 12:575-579.
112. Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli, Astronomical and Physical Observations of the Axis of Rotation and the Topography of the Planet Mars: First Memoir, 1877-1878, trans. William Sheehan (1878; Springfield, Ill.: Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, 1996), pp. 3, 1;
113. and Edward S. Holden, "What We Really Know about Mars," Forum, 1892, 14:359-363, on p. 359.
114. Lowell, Mars (cit. n. 31), p. 93;
115. and Percival Lowell, "Mars: The Polar Snows," Pop. Astron., 1894, 2:52-56, on p. 55.
116. Lowell, "Mars: The Polar Snows," p. 54;
117. and Percival Lowell, "Mars: The Water Problem," Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, 1895, 75:749-758.
118. Schiaparelli, "Planet Mars" (cit. n. 35), p. 636;
119. and Lowell, Mars (cit. n. 31), p. 88.
120. For a detailed discussion of the Victorian fascination with all things polar see Robert G. David, The Arctic in the British Imagination, 1818-1914 (Manchester: Manchester Univ. Press, 2000).
121. R. A. Gregory, "Mars as a World," Living Age, 1900, 225:21-28, on p. 22 (rpt. from the National Review);
122. and E. T. Brewster, "The Earth and the Heavens," Atlantic Month., 1907, 100:260-265, on p. 262.
123. G. V. Schiaparelli, "Topografia e clima di Milano," in Le opere di G. V. Schiaparelli, 11 vols., Vol. 11 (1881; Milan: Hoepli, 1943), pp. 355-396;
124. Schiaparelli, draft copy of Marte, Ch. 3: "Osservazioni sull'aspetto presentato dalle vari regioni del pianeta durante l'opposizione 1879," Fondo Schiaparelli, Archivo Storico, Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera; and Theodore Roosevelt to Alexander Agassiz, 26 Dec. 1902, Newcomb Papers (cit. n. 22).
125. Percival Lowell, "The Geography of Mars: Lecture to the National Geographic Society, Washington, D.C.," 3 Jan. 1908, unpublished lecture notes, Lowell Observatory Archives (cit. n. 33);
126. Lowell, Chosön: The Land of the Morning Calm: A Sketch of Korea (Boston: Ticknor, 1886);
127. Lowell, Noto: An Unexplored Corner of Japan (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1891);
128. and Lowell, Occult Japan; or, The Way of the Gods: An Esoteric Study of Japanese Personality and Possession (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1894).
129. Percival Lowell, The Soul of the Far East (Boston/New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1888).
130. Strauss shows in Percival Lowell (cit. n. 2) that Lowell attempted to characterize Asian development levels on a Spencerian hierarchical scale "from savage to civilized." Noting the advancement of Japanese art and the flaws of Western industrialism, Lowell developed a view of individuality as the pinnacle of human societal evolution in order to "validate something truly valuable in East Asian culture [i.e., art] that was, nonetheless, not the equal of Western achievement in science" (p. 129). He similarly relied on Spencer in his study of Mars, Strauss shows, basing his proofs of extraterrestrial life on a modified version of Spencer's nebular hypothesis (originally posited by Pierre Simon Laplace) that claimed the inevitable development of the solar system, a common origin for all planets, and the necessary evolution of life on all planets.
131. On the popular geographical writing of the period see David Spurr, The Rhetoric of Empire: Colonial Discourse in Journalism, Travel Writing, and Imperial Administration (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 1992);
132. Tim Youngs, "'My Footsteps on These Pages': The Inscription of Self and 'Race' in H. M. Stanley's How I Found Livingstone," Prose Studies, 1990, 13:230-249;
133. and Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 1992).
134. Lowell, "Mars: The Water Problem" (cit. n. 40), p. 750;
135. and Lowell, "New Photographs of Mars: Taken by the Astronomical Expedition to the Andes and Now First Published," Century Magazine, 1907, 75:303-311.
136. Tucker's "Science Illustrated" (cit. n. 25) includes a detailed discussion of how Lowell used photographs to shore up his credibility in the face of criticism.
137. Edward S. Holden, "Note on the Mount Hamilton Observations of Mars, June-August 1892," Astron. Astro-Phys., 1892, 11:663-668, on p. 668;
138. Giovanni Schiaparelli, "The Planet Mars [Pt. 2]," Astron. Astro-phys. ibid., 1894, 13:714-723, on pp. 714, 719;
139. E. M. Antoniadi, "Section for the Observation of Mars: Report of the Section, 1896," Mem. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 1898, 6:55-102 (Sahara Desert);
140. Percival Lowell, "Mars: Atmosphere," Pop. Astron., 1894, 2:154-160 (Himalayan Mountains);
141. and Robert S. Ball, In Starry Realms (London: Isbister, 1892), p. 150.
142. See also Driver, Geography Militant (cit. n. 24).
143. Robert S. Ball, "Mars," Living Age, 1892, 195:195-205, on p. 203;
144. and Gregory, "Mars as a World" (cit. n. 42), p. 23.
145. Crowe asserts in The Extraterrestrial Life Debate (cit. n. 1) that logical fallacies - such as the mistaking of analogy for proof - were instrumental to most of the claims made by early Mars scientists.
146. Percival Lowell, "Mars: Seasonal Changes on the Planet's Surface," Astron. Astro-Phys., 1894, 13:814-821, on p. 821;
147. and Lowell, "Mars: Oases," Pop. Astron., 1895, 2:343-348.
148. Lowell, "Geography of Mars" (cit. n. 44), p. 15.
149. Lowell presented these arguments in multiple articles and books, such as Mars (cit. n. 31);
150. and Percival Lowell, Mars and Its Canals (New York: Macmillan, 1906).
151. would like to thank Robert Markley for very generously sharing with me a draft of his forthcoming Dying Planet: Mars in Science and the Imagination (Durham, N.C.: Duke Univ. Press, 2005) as I was revising this article.
152. Anne Godlewska, "Map, Text, and Image: The Mentality of Enlightened Conquerors: A New Look at the Description de l'Egypte," Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 1995, 20:5-28;
153. and Scott Kirsch, "John Wesley Powell and the Mapping of the Colorado Plateau, 1869-1879: Survey Science, Geographical Solutions, and the Economy of Environmental Values," Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2002, 92:548-572.
154. Percival Lowell, The Evolution of Worlds (New York: Macmillan, 1909).
155. On narrations of terrestrial climate change and resource depletion see A. T. Grove and Oliver Rackham, The Nature of Mediterranean Europe: An Ecological History (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 2001);
156. Diana K. Davis, "Environmentalism as Social Control? An Exploration of the Transformation of Pastoral Nomadic Societies in French Colonial North Africa," Arab World Geographer, 2000, 3:182-198;
157. Richard H. Grove, "The Evolution of the Colonial Discourse on Deforestation and Climate Change, 1500-1940," in Ecology, Climate, and Empire (Cambridge: White Horse Press, 1997), pp. 5-36;
158. and Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (New Haven, Conn./London: Yale Univ. Press, 1967).
159. Lowell describes the Martians' calm response to environmental challenges in Mars (cit. n. 31). In contrast see, e.g., Edgar Rice Burroughs, A Princess of Mars (1917; New York: Dover, 1964)
160. (first serialized in All-Story Magazine in 1912).
161. Lowell, "Mars: Oases" (cit. n. 49), p. 234.
162. Regarding the unprecedented acceptance of the idea of Martian life see Guthke, Last Frontier, trans. Atkins (cit. n. 1).
163. Crowe traces belief in plurality back to antiquity; see Crowe, Extraterrestrial Life Debate (cit. n. 1).
164. H. C. Wilson, "Mars and His Canals," Sidereal Messenger, 1889, 8:13-25, on p. 14;
165. and Ball, "Mars" (cit. n. 48), p. 202.
166. For a discussion of the role of popularizers in both making and interpreting science for Victorian publics see Bernard Lightman, "The Voices of Nature": Popularizing Victorian Science," in Victorian Science in Context, ed. Lightman (Chicago/London: Univ. Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 187-211.
167. David N. Livingstone, "The Geographical Experiment: Evolution and Founding of a Discipline," in The Geographical Tradition (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), pp. 177-215.
168. See David Sutton Dolan, "Percival Lowell: The Sage as Astronomer" (Ph.D. diss., Univ. Wollongong, 1992),
169. for a discussion of Lowell's belief that his role as a scientist and intellectual was to interpret the natural world and spread his interpretations to the masses. Strauss's excellent biography treats Lowell's commitment to Spencerian theory in great detail, identifying Lowell as "one of the last and most audacious exemplars of a characteristically nineteenth-century mode of inquiry. Among his predecessors was Alexander von Humboldt, whose five-volume Cosmos sought to explain the operation of the universe": Strauss, Percival Lowell (cit. n. 2), p. 101.
170. Dolan, "Percival Lowell."
171. Livingstone, "Geographical Experiment."
172. More broadly, see Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978).
173. Brewster, "Earth and the Heavens" (cit. n. 42), p. 262.
174. On erasure see Simon Ryan, "Inscribing the Emptiness: Cartography, Exploration, and the Construction of Australia," in De-scribing Empire: Post-Colonialism and Textuality, ed. Chris Tiffin and Alan Lawson (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 115-130.
175. For more detail on how this anxiety was expressed in British fiction see David A. Schroeder, "A Message from Mars: Astronomy and Late-Victorian Culture" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana Univ., 2002).
176. For a discussion of the codependence of science and science fiction in the late Victorian era see Paul Fayter, "Strange New Worlds of Space and Time: Late Victorian Science and Science Fiction," in Victorian Science in Context, ed. Lightman (cit. n. 55), pp. 256-280.
177. See "Mars: MEC-1 Prototype," one of several maps produced for the Mariner missions by the Aeronautical Chart and Information System of the U.S. Air Force. This 1962 Mercator projection map, which uses an equatorial scale of 1:35,000,000, shows dozens of linear and spokelike markings that are noted as "representative of the 'canals' as they have been drawn by many prominent observers of Mars." Lowell's close associate E. C. Slipher, who was still at the Lowell Observatory in 1962, is one of two astronomers credited for "advisory assistance" on the map. For further discussion of the ways in which space-age Mars maps reflected terrestrial imaginations see Oliver Morton, Mapping Mars: Science, Imagination, and the Birth of a World (London: Fourth Estate, 2002).
178. Richard A. Kerr, "Breakthrough of the Year: On Mars, a Second Chance for Life," Science, 2004, 306:2010-2012.