efore we had feasted our eyes
sufficiently on it, we were summoned to see one of the most lovely
sights I ever witnessed. Though it was mid-day, and the sun was shining
most brilliantly, we saw the exquisitely sharp crescent of Venus in the
pale sky, and about half the apparent size of the moon. The object-glass
of the instrument was divided into squares, and she passed rapidly
across the field of the telescope, sailing, as it were, in ether; by the
slightest motion of a tangent-screw of great length, we were able to
bring her back as often as we liked, to the centre of the field. This
mechanical process might, however, have been rendered unnecessary, had
the machinery attached to the instrument been wound up; for when this is
the case, if the telescope is directed to any star or point in the
heavens, it continues to point to it for the whole twenty-four hours in
succession, the machine revolving round in the plane to which it is set.
The instrument is a very powerful one, and, like the smaller one we
looked through before, was made by Fraunhofer, a famous optician at
Munich. There are some other very wonderful instruments which we had not
time to see, as we had to make desperate haste to get some dinner, and
be off by the late train to Baltimore. But before I take leave of this
subject, I must return for a minute or two to that most perfectly lovely
creature Venus. She was a true crescent; we could imagine we saw the
jagged edge of the inner side of the crescent, but the transition from
the planet to the delicate sky was so gradual, that as far as this inner
edge was concerned, this was probably only imagination. Her colouring
on this jagged side was of the most transparent silvery hue. The outer
edge was very sharply defined against the sky, and her colour shaded off
on this side to a pale golden yellow with a red or pink tint in it; this
being the side she was presenting to the sun. No words can express her
beauty. She is the planet that I told you lately looked so very large.

On our way to the station, and in our drives about the town, we had an
opportunity of seeing the City of Washington. The town was originally
laid out by Washington himself, and divided off into streets, or rather
wide avenues, which are crossed by other streets of great breadth; but
though the streets are named, in many of them no houses are yet built,
and those that are have a mean appearance, owing to their being unsuited
in height to the gre