Re: lakes and forests on mars

i am holding in my hands a giant coffee table book, readers digest great world atlas, copyright 1963. this was the last year that our information flow was fairly unimpeded coming from science. after that, true knowledge was replaced with the fairytales we have today. in part one, "the universe and the earth", there is a telescope picture of mars. i will try to upload a picture of this page at some point. for now, i will simply transcribe the caption below the picture.

"MARS, when studied by telescope, reportedly reveals canal-like lines that do not show up in photographs. The patches of color in this picture are believed to be zones of vegetation. The white area, one of the polar caps, is thought to be covered with a thin coating of ice."