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PERCIVAL LOWELL AGE 61
From a silver point portrait begun before his death and finished afterwards by Eccolo Cartollo
BIOGRAPHY OF
PERCIVAL LOWELL
By
A. LAWRENCE LOWELL
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1935
Copyright, 1935, by
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
All rights reserved—no part of this book may bereproduced in any form without permission in writingfrom the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishesto quote brief passages in connection with a reviewwritten for inclusion in magazine or newspaper.
Set up and printed.
Published November, 1935.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NORWOOD PRESS LINOTYPE, INC.
NORWOOD, MASS., U.S.A.
PREFACE
If genius is the capacity for taking infinite pains, PercivalLowell possessed it abundantly from his study of EsotericShinto, in his earlier life in Japan, to his great calculationof the position and orbit of an unknown planet beyondNeptune, at the close of his life. In determining facts hewas thoroughly and rigidly scientific, leaving nothing unexploredthat bore upon the subject; and in his astronomicalinvestigations it became clear to him that better methodsof doing it were required. At the outset, therefore, he setup his Observatory in an atmosphere steadier than thatwhere the older telescopes, and almost all of those then inexistence, did their work; thus seeing much not visibleelsewhere.
But in addition to industry he had an inflammable intellect,easily ignited by any suggestion or observation, andwhen alight glowing in intensity until the work was done.He had also a highly vivid imagination, compared withmany men of science who proceeded more cautiously; andhence he sought, not only to ascertain new facts, but todraw conclusions from them more freely than is customarywith experts of that type. This he felt had often been trueof those who made advances in scientific thought, and heregarded himself as standing for a time somewhat apartfrom most men in his own field. Such an attitude, andthe fact that he had taken up observational astronomy inmiddle life, unconnected with any other scientific institution,tended to make many professional astronomers lookviupon him askance. So he plowed his own furrow largelyby himself in the spirit of a pioneer, and this little volumeis an attempt to tell what he accomplished.
The writer is very grateful to the Houghton, Miffl