308 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



goes racing around Mother Sun in about 88 days which makes its 

 year very short. It goes around it four times and more while we 

 are going around once. Being so near to the sun there could be 

 no life on this little hustling planet and we have discovered that 

 Mercury always keeps the same face turned towards the sun which 

 means that it rotates on its axis only once in 88 days. We can 

 seldom see Mercury with the naked eye because it is so near the 

 sun and probably has no atmosphere nor water and may be very 

 much like our own dead, rocky moon. 



Venus is the world next nearest to the sun and what we do know 

 about Venus fills volumes, and what we do not know about her 

 would fill more. We do know that she is our own most beautiful 

 bright companionable mcrning or evening star, and has been cele- 

 brated for her beauty since man first learned that she was a planet. 

 She is so brilliant at times that on nights when there is no moon 

 the light which she sends down to us casts a shadow, thus the 

 Ancients called her the shepherd's star. Homer called her the 

 beautiful star and Napoleon regarded her as his especial heavenly 

 mascot and once exclaimed "Do you see? That is my star, so- 

 long as it shines I will have no doubt of success." 



Although Venus is so near to us, the Astronomers hold differing 

 theories about it. Some of the most eminent declare that it keeps 

 one face to the sun all the time as does Mercury, and therefore 

 rotates on it's axis only once in about 225 days which is the length 

 of its year. In this case one side of it must be white-hot and 

 thoroughly baked while the other side must be frozen to stone and 

 therefore could hardly be the abode of life. Other astronomers 

 believe that it has a dense water vapor atmosphere and rotates on 

 its axis in about twenty -four hours in which case it would probably 

 be teeming with life and peopled like the earth. Most astronomers 

 agree that the telescope reveals little of the solid earth of Venus 

 but that it is always hidden in vapor which is one reason why it 

 reflects light of the sun so resplendently. Indeed some astronomers 

 of late have declared that Venus is much more likely to be the 

 abode of life than is Mars. We have faith that sometime this 

 matter will be settled beyond dispute. 



During the first of this month Venus is a beautiful evening star 

 and sets about two hours and a half after the sun. 



Mars is the one planet we have been able to study most carefully. 

 Its path around the sun lies outside of ours about thirty million 



