ulus in the constellation Leo. The day in Mercury is about
ten minutes longer than ours, its year is about equal to three of our
months. It receives six and a half times as much heat from the Sun as we
do; from which we conclude that the climate must be very similar to that
of Fort Yuma, on the Colorado River. The difficulty of communication
with Mercury will probably prevent its ever being selected as a military
post; though it possesses many advantages for that purpose, being
extremely inaccessible, inconvenient, and, doubtless, singularly
uncomfortable. It receives its name from the God, Mercury, in the
Heathen Mythology, who is the patron and tutelary Divinity of San Diego
County.

VENUS

This beautiful planet may be seen either a little after sunset or
shortly before sunrise, according as it becomes the morning or the
evening star, but never departing quite forty-eight degrees from the
Sun. Its day is about twenty-five minutes shorter than ours; its year
seven and a half months or thirty-two weeks. The diameter of Venus is
7,700 miles, and she receives from the Sun thrice as much light and heat
as the Earth.

An old Dutchman named Schroeter spent more than ten years in
observations on this planet, and finally discovered a mountain on it
twenty-two miles in height, but he never could discover anything on the
mountain, not even a mouse, and finally died about as wise as when he
commenced his studies.

Venus, in Mythology, was a Goddess of singular beauty, who became the
wife of Vulcan, the blacksmith, and, we regret to add, behaved in the
most immoral manner after her marriage. The celebrated case of Vulcan
_vs._ Mars, and the consequent scandal, is probably still fresh in the
minds of our readers. By a large portion of society, however, she was
considered an ill-used and persecuted lady, against whose high tone of
morals and strictly virtuous conduct not a shadow of suspicion could be
cast; Vulcan, by the same parties, was considered a horrid brute, and
they all agreed that it served him right when he lost his case and had
to pay the costs of court. Venus still remains the Goddess of Beauty,
and not a few of her _proteges_ may be found in California.

THE EARTH

The Earth, or as the Latins called it, Tellus (from which originated the
expression, "Do tell us"), is the third planet in the Solar System, and
the one on which we subsist, with all our important joys and sorrows.
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