Page:Is Mars habitable - Wallace 1907.djvu/26

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CHAPTER II.

MR PERCIVAL LOWELL'S DISCOVERIES AND THEORIES.

The Observatory in Arizona.

In 1894, after a careful search for the best atmospheric conditions, Mr. Lowell established his observatory near the town of Flagstaff in Arizona, in a very dry and uniform climate, and at an elevation of 7300 feet above the sea. He then possessed a fine equatorial telescope of 18 inches aperture and 26 feet focal length, besides two smaller ones, all of the best quality. To these he added in 1896 a telescope with 24 inch object glass, the last work of the celebrated firm of Alvan Clark & Sons, with which he has made his later discoveries. He thus became perhaps more favourably situated than any astronomer in the northern hemisphere, and during the last twelve years has made a specialty of the study of Mars, besides doing much valuable astronomical work on other planets.