A man removed to
Venus would, consequently, find himself perceptibly lighter than he was
at home, and would be able to exert his strength with considerably
greater effect than on his own planet. But the difference would amount
only to an agreeable variation from accustomed conditions, and would not
be productive of fundamental changes in the order of nature.
Being, like Mercury, nearer to the sun than the earth is, Venus also is
visible to us only in the morning or the evening sky. But her distance
from the sun, slightly exceeding 67,000,000 miles, is nearly double that
of Mercury, so that, when favorably situated, she becomes a very
conspicuous object, and, instead of being known almost exclusively by
astronomers, she is, perhaps, the most popular and most admired of all
the members of the planetary system, especially when she appears in the
charming role of the "evening star." As she emerges periodically from
the blinding glare of the sun's immediate neighborhood and begins to
soar, bright as an electric balloon, in the twilight, she commands all
eyes and calls forth exclamations of astonishment and admiration by her
singular beauty. The intervals between her successive reappearances in
the evening sky, measured by her synodic period of 584 days, are
sufficiently long to give an element of surprise and novelty to every
return of so dazzling a phenomenon.
Even the light of the full moon silvering the tree tops does not
exercise greater enchantment over the mind of the contemplative
observer.
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