Lowell asks how a solar system comes into being and what happens to its planets over time. He argues for a violent stellar beginning, then surveys the inner and outer planets, the moons of Saturn in order of size, the formation of planets and the stages of a planet’s life, from self-sustained heat to old age, drawing on observations at his Flagstaff observatory.
A confident 1909 synthesis by the astronomer of the Martian canals, interesting now for both its insights and its errors. Download the free EPUB.