A Princess of Mars - Scientific Background

Scientific Background

In 1895 Percival Lowell published a book entitled Mars which speculated about an arid, dying landscape, whose inhabitants had been forced to build canals thousands of miles long to bring water from the polar caps to irrigate the remaining arable land. Lowell built upon ideas introduced by Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, who in 1877, observed geological features on Mars which he called canali (Italian for "channels"). This was mistranslated into the English as "canals" which, being artificial watercourses, fueled the belief that there was some sort of intelligent extraterrestrial life on the planet.

In the early 20th century Lowell published two more books, further developing the concept of a dying Mars. Burroughs was aware of these theories and appears to have consciously followed them. However, Burroughs does not seem to have based his vision of Mars on precise reading of Lowell's theories, as there are a number of errors in his interpretation which suggest he may have got most of his information from reading newspaper articles and other popular accounts of Lowell's Mars.

The ideas of canals with flowing water and an inhabited, if dying world, were later disproved by more accurate observation of the planet, and fly bys and landings by Russian and American probes such as the two Viking missions which found a dead, frozen world where water could not exist in a liquid state.