The Legacy Left Behind by Percival Lowell, Part II

In 1895, Lowell published his book Mars, where he theorized that Mars was once like the Earth but since had lost its oceans; so in order to preserve life on their dying planet, the Martians built a vast irrigation system. It was met with some skepticism. For example, some skeptics had questioned whether the small polar caps can even support an irrigation system that large. However, “the public ate it up….His books were best-sellers, and his sensational lectures were standing-room-only affairs, with frenzied throngs spilling onto the street. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Lowell’s advanced canal-building Martians were all the rage on Earth” (Grinspoon, 2004). This frenzy affected how science fiction writers portrayed Mars and the life on it. The topics for these fictional works ranged from the invasions of Earth by Martians to the depiction of mankind’s voyages to a habitable Mars.

Source:
David Grinspoon's Lonely Planets: The Natural Philosophy of Alien Life