clemencies of the colder earth.

We have seen that there is excellent authority for saying that Venus's
atmosphere is from one and a half to two times as dense and as extensive
as ours. Here is an interesting suggestion of aerial possibilities for
her inhabitants. If man could but fly, how would he take to himself
wings and widen his horizons along with the birds! Give him an
atmosphere the double in density of that which now envelopes him, take
off a little of his weight, thereby increasing the ratio of his strength
and activity, put into his nervous system a more puissant stimulus from
the life-giving sun, and perchance he _would_ fly.

Well, on Venus, apparently, these very conditions actually exist. How,
then, do intellectual creatures in the world of Venus take wing when
they choose? Upon what spectacle of fluttering pinions afloat in
iridescent air, like a Raphael dream of heaven and its angels, might we
not look down if we could get near enough to our brilliant evening star
to behold the intimate splendors of its life?

As Venus herself would be the most brilliant member of the celestial
host to an observer stationed on the night side of Mercury, so the earth
takes precedence in the midnight sky of Venus. For the inhabitants of
Venus Mercury is a splendid evening and morning star only, while the
earth, being an outer planet, is visible at times in that part of the
sky which is directly opposite to the place of the sun. The light
reflected from our planet is probably less dazzling than that which
Venus sends to us, both because, at our greater distance, the sunlight
is less intense, and because our rarer atmosphere reflects a smaller
proportion of the rays incident upon it. But the earth is, after all, a
more brilliant phenomenon seen from Venus than the latter is seen from
the earth, for the reason that the entire illuminated disk of the earth
is presented toward our sister planet when the two are at their nearest
point of approach, whereas, at that time, the larger part of the surface
of Venus that is turned earthward has no illumination, while the
illuminated portion is a mere crescent.

Owing, again, to the comparative rarity of the terrestrial atmosphere,
it is probable that the inhabitants of Venus--assuming their
existence--enjoy a superb view of the continents, oceans, polar snows,
and passing clouds that color and variegate the face of the earth. Our
astronomers can study the full disk of Venus only wh