Percival Lawrence Lowell (1855 - 1916) was who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars.
He was particularly interested in the canals of Mars, as drawn by Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli. For fifteen years he studied Mars extensively, and made intricate drawings of the surface markings as he perceived them. He theorized that an advanced but desperate culture had built the canals to tap Mars' polar ice caps, the last source of water on an inexorably drying planet. Today, the surface markings taken to be canals are regarded as an optical illusion.
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