Biography of Percival Lowell

The particular assortment of qualities a man inherits, from among the miscellaneous lot his ancestors no doubt possessed and might have transmitted, is of primary importance to...

In the summer of 1877 he came home; and, having no impulse toward a profession, he went into the office of his grandfather, John Amory Lowell, where he was engaged in helping to...

It was the first diplomatic mission from the hermit kingdom to any Western power, and they wanted someone with _savoir faire_ to look after them. He accepted the post, landing i...

He did write the book, and published it in 1885, under the title of “Chosön—the Land of the Morning Calm—A Sketch of Korea” It is an account of his personal experiences, under p...

One more event in Korea interested him deeply, for it meant life or death to some of his nearest native friends, and under the title of “A Korean Coup d’Etat,” he gave a graphic...

Back in Japan in the early spring of 1884, Percival stayed there until midsummer, when he turned his face homeward and westward, for he had crossed the Pacific three times and p...

Having got “The Soul of the Far East” off his hands, and into those of the public, in 1888, he sailed in December for Japan, arriving on January the eighth. As usual he took a h...

The trip to Spain was merely an interlude; for, above all, at this time he felt the attraction of Japan. Returning from Europe in June he spent the summer in Dedham; but when wi...

When, returning from Japan late in 1893, Percival Lowell found himself quickly absorbed by astronomical research, he was by no means without immediate equipment for the task. Hi...

Meanwhile the work of the Observatory went on, partly in the direction of the special lines of the several observers, but mainly in that of the founder whose interest was then p...

The year following his return to Boston, at the end of November, 1894, was filled with the arrangements for his new telescope and apparatus, and in writing the book on Mars. At...

But his personal hopes of contributing further to science, or diffusing the knowledge learned, were destined to be sadly postponed. In the spring he left Mexico, and the telesco...

By the early spring of 1901 Percival was well over his illness, and fit to return to the Observatory for the oppositions of Mars in that year, in 1903 and in 1905. Shortly after...

In the intervals of personal observation Percival was often giving lectures or writing on astronomical subjects for the publications of the Observatory, and for scientific socie...

water, in short still fluid; and as it has a tremendous spin, rotating in less than ten hours, it is more oblate than the Earth; that is, the diameter at its equator is larger i...

After the planets had been formed through the aggregation of revolving fragments driven off by the catastrophic collision from the Sun, and after they had attained their maximum...

Naturally Percival’s observations of Mars, and still more the conclusions he drew from them, provoked widespread attention among astronomers, some of whom were convinced, while...

Ever inquiring, ever fertile, his mind turned to seek the explanation of divers astronomical phenomena. In 1912, for example, under the title “Precession and the Pyramids,” we f...

In a paper presented to the American Academy in April, 1913, and printed in their Memoirs[38] Percival explained the “Origin of the Planets” by the same principle of commensurat...

We must now return to the last paragraph of his “Memoir on the Origin of the Planets,” where he suggests the probable distance of a body beyond Neptune. In fact he had long been...

Percival had long intended that his Observatory should be permanent, and that his work, especially on the planets, should be forever carried on there with an adequate foundation...