Is Mars Habitable?: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Is Mars Habitable?, credited to Alfred Russel Wallace, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

Librivox recording of Is Mars Habitable? by Alfred Russel Wallace. Read by Caliban In 1907 Wallace wrote the short book Is Mars Habitable? to criticize the claims made by Percival Lowell that there were Martian canals built by intelligent beings. Wallace did months of research, consulted various experts, and produced his own scientific analysis of the Martian climate and atmospheric conditions. Among other things Wallace pointed out that spectroscopic analysis had shown no signs of water vapor in the Martian atmosphere, that Lowell's analysis of Mars' climate was seriously flawed and badly overestimated the surface temperature, and that low atmospheric pressure would make liquid water, let alone a planet girding irrigation system, impossible. (from Wikipedia)

Recording facts

• Recording title: Is Mars Habitable?
• Author credits: Alfred Russel Wallace
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 9
• Listed recording duration: 3:01:05

Catalogue topics

• Mars
• Percival Lowell
• Wallace
• Martian canals
• life on Mars
• temperature of Mars

Track guide

1. 0 - Preface — 5:24
2. 1 - Early Observers of Mars — 9:51
3. 2 - Mr. Lowell's Discoveries and Theories — 13:47
4. 3 - Climate & Physiography — 26:35
5. 4 - Is Animal Life Possible on Mars? — 10:47
6. 5 - Temperature on Mars - Mr. Lowell's Estimate — 25:17
7. 6 - A New Estimate of the Temperature on Mars — 35:51
8. 7 - A Suggestion as to the Canals of Mars — 39:07
9. 8 - Summary and Conclusion — 14:30

Listen to this recording

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Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.