...--Yours very truly,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO PROF. BARRETT
_Broadstone, Wimborne. August 10, 1907._
My dear Barrett,--Thanks for your letter, and your friend Prof.
Stroud's. I have come to the sad conclusion that it is hopeless to get
any mathematician to trouble himself to track out Lowell's obscurities
and fallacies.... So, being driven on to my own resources, I have worked
out a mode of estimating (within limits) the temperature of Mars,
without any mathematical formulae--and only a little arithmetic. I want
to know if there is any fallacy in it, and therefore take the liberty of
sending it to you, as you are taking your holiday, just to read it over
and tell me if you see any flaw in it. I also send my short summary of
Lowell's _Philosophical Magazine_ paper, so that you can see if my
criticism at the end is fair, and whether his words really mean what to
me they seem to....--Yours very sincerely,
ALFRED R. WALLACE.
* * * * *
TO MR. F. BIRCH
_Sept. 12, 1907._
Dear Fred,-- ... For the last two or three months I have had a hard
struggle with Mars--not the god of war, but the planet--writing a small
book, chiefly criticising Lowell's last book, called "Mars and its
Canals," published less than a year back by Macmillan, who will also
publish my reply. _I_ think it is crushing, but it has cost me a deal of
trouble, as Lowell has also printed a long and complex mathematical
article trying to prove that though Mars receives less than half the
sun-heat we do, yet it is very nearly as warm and quite habitable! But
his figures and arguments are alike so shaky and involved that I cannot
get any of my mathematical friends to tackle it or point out his errors.
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