I learned about Giovanni Schiaparelli's "Mars canals", and how the Italian word "canali" was later translated into English as "canals", when I was seven or eight years old. That's why I wrote "Martian canals" in inverted commas (duh!). The fact remains that it was Schiaparelli, not Lowell, who discovered "canals" (see the inverted commas again?) on Mars.

Two centuries later and a continent away, Lowell... corrupted or mis-translated this ...into "canals" of a dying race of Martians.

Lowell must have had extraordinary powers of time travel, since he died just six years after Schiaparelli : )

In fact many esteemed scientists of Schiaparelli's day - including members of the Royal Society - confirmed his "Mars canals" observation and contributed further observations of their own - including bridges over the canals etc.

My original point - in case you've forgotten (those two neurons of yours must be overheating with all this unaccustomed mental effort) was that scientists had observed canals on Mars with the aid of telescopes. This was in response to the (rather silly) statement that science and not intuition had made it possible for the Martian icecaps to be observed.

(Martian icecaps? You don't really believe that, do you?!)