n 



VKKANTIS. 



ioun<V mieh a , r, M. when the jaw i tbut flted, can b made with 

 a i):ht iiKivniK nt of the lip*- The lips and jawi l^jn',' alwy* some- 

 what open during venttilo 1117. a til .lit labial movement reuiaini 

 unnoticed, unles* *|>eeial attention be directed to it ; and all the modi- 

 cations of voice can be produced without at all diitortiug the featuree 

 or moving the lip*. 



The preceding outline of the philosophy of ventriloquism u nifficient 

 to exhibit the nature of the art. To enter upon the consideration of 

 all the Tooal mraus adopted to accomplish the varioui imitations 

 would fill a volume The mode of counterfeiting variation! in Inud- 

 net* by change* of pitch, and aim by change** from the natural to the 

 falwtto register of voice, are amongst the wonders of vocal science, and 

 are capable of extensive application by the scientific ventriloquist. 



VKNI'K (nrintiuiit, rime, " neighbourhood"). The county in 

 which the trial of a particular cause taken place Is said to be the 

 renue of that cause. The old practice in this matter is connected with 

 the original functions of the jury, as persons who were acquainted 

 with the fact* in issue. (JpRT.] In order, thtn, that a proper niu'rr 

 might issue to the sheriff, the place in which the action was brought 

 was stated in the margin of the declaration, and on the statement 

 throughout the pleadings of any issuable fact a statement was alto 

 made of the place at which such toot was alleged to have occurred 

 As to all such f.ict* upon which issue WAS taken, a venire was sued out 

 applying to each different place. The sheriff returned jurors from that 

 place, and by those jurors the facts were decided, so that several dis- 

 tinct mint and trials might be necessary to dispose of the issues in 

 one action. 



When juries ceased to act on their own knowledge, and began to 

 determine on the evidence of witnesses, the necessity ceased for sum- 

 moning them frum the particular part of the country, and the practice 

 gtadiully declined, till at last, the rniire itself gave way to a precept 

 commanding the attendance of the jurors at the assizes. (C'unimun 

 Law Procedure Art, I, 1 -. 



A distinction was long since established between local actions (th.it 

 U, actions relating to real estate) and transitory (that is, actions of debt, 

 contract, for personal Injuries Ac.). In regard to the former, it was held 

 that the actual place in which the subject-matter was situated must be 

 laid as the venue in the action, and that rule still prevails. The reason 

 is said to proceed from the circumstance that, unless the action were 

 brought In the actual county, the sheriff of the county would be unable 

 to give effect to the judgment in the action. In transitory actions, on 

 the contrary, the subject-matter of them being held not to have any 

 fixed place, the plaintiff is at liberty to bring his action in any county 

 in which he please. As a consequence of which it follows, that 

 though the cause of action has occurred even out of the kingdom, it 

 is still open to the plaintiff to bring his action in the courts of this 

 country. The plaintiff has still thU libertj in a transitory action ; but 

 the courts assert an authority upon application made to them of 

 changing the venue. This is done upon iU being made to appear that 

 great inconvenience would arise from trying in the original enmity, 

 because the body of the c-vi li-nc- lies in another, or because from local 

 prejudices a fair trial cannot be had,&o. And the same authority may 

 be ixercued even in local actions, in spite of the technical difhculty 

 which has been before referred to. 



In criminal trial* the venue is usually the county in which the 

 offence charged was actually committed. The courts however have 

 the same discretion as to the power of changing the venue as in civil 

 case* . and as to criminal trials, many exceptions have been introduced 

 by various statutes. 



VKNL'S DE MEDICI. [APHRODITE.] 



VKN US, the name of the planet which is nearest to the earth, nnd, 

 except Mercury, nearest to the sun. The principal point of its physical 

 description is the distinctness with which its phases are seen through a 

 t*le*ope, in which it exhibits all the changes of appearance which are, 

 tu the naked eye, characteristic of nothing but the moon. With regard 

 to these phase*, there is a remarkable historical error which we cannot 

 trace higher than Dr. Smith's ' Unties,' but which has been copied by 

 Button nd others. It U said, " When Copernicus revived the ancient 

 Pythaguric system, asserting that the earth and planets moved i.uni.l 

 the sun at the centre of their orbits, the I'toleumica objected, if thi* 

 were true, that the phase* of Venus should resemble those of the 

 moon. Copernicus replied, that tome time or other that taemblanre 

 *.mld be /wet out" (Smith's Optics.' p. 415.) Now, first, Coperni- 

 ous never answered an objection to his system In the manner implied 

 in the story ; for he literally only lived to lay his hand upon a . 

 his own work, and never opened it. [CopEKXicfs, in Bioo. Inv.] 

 Secondly , Oasseudi, his biographer, in stating the verification of but 

 /stem (u he calls it), derived from these phases, never allude* to any 

 uch prophecy ; nor doe* Galileo in announcing the telescopic discovery 

 of the phases of Venus (A D. 1611), and in giving praise to Coptrnicus 

 and Kepler for not having abandoned the motion of the earth on 

 account of the difficulty arming out of the apparent want of them, ever 

 s ippose that Copernicus, or nny of his follow em, had the slightest Idea 

 of that apparent want alining from imperfection of vision. Thirdly, 

 C"]H rnicus himself, in mentioning the difficulty, exnreMly meet* it by 

 the u|.piition that Mercury and Venus, the " stellsJ " alluded to in 

 tb* coming quotation, either shine by their own light, or are completely 

 wit n rated with the solar rays : " Non ergo faUmnr in stellis opaciUtem 



eise aliquam, lunar! slmilara, sed vel pronrio lumine, vel snlari totis 

 imbuU* oorporilms fulgsre, et idoirco . >Km non impedire" (hi,, i. 

 cap 10). And the objection itenlf has nothing to do with tln< 

 enos between the system of Copernicus and that of Ptolemy f, 

 long before been rained against the latter : all, in fact, who maintained 

 that the orbit of Venus come* between the earth and sun having to 

 meet it In one way or another, whether they made the earth or the sun 

 the centre of their system. 



In the theory of the motion of Venus, the most remarkable circiun- 

 stance is the lung iRronaftty discovered some years as;o by Mr. Air v. 

 depending upon the eirth. (GRAVITATION j A satellite was at one 

 time suspected to belong to this planet, but no such thing has ever 

 been detected, it may be remarked that the satellite of an inferior 

 planet might not be easy to find, if it were very small ; for when the 

 planet is nearest the earth, and circumstance* are most favourable for its 

 discovery in other respects, the dark side would be turned towards the 

 earth. Though in the earlier period of telescopic observations, spots of 

 various sorts were detected on the disc of Venus, yet the general de- 

 scription of its ap|>earano in our day, as given by HIT J. Herschel. is as 

 follows : " Although it occasionally attains the diameter of 61", which 

 i* larger than that of any other planet, it is yet the most difficult of 

 them all to define with telescopes. The intense lustre of its illuminated 

 part daizlas the sight, and exaggerates every imperfection of the tele- 

 scope ; yet we see clearly that iU surface is not mottled over with per- 

 manent spot* like the moon ; we perceive in it neither mountains nor 

 shadows, but a uniform brightness, in which sometime* we muy indeed 

 fancy obscurer portions, but can seldom or never rest fully satisfied of 

 the fact. The most natural conclusion, from the very raro appearance 

 and want of permanence of the spots, is that we do not sea, a* in tho 

 moon the real surface of this planet, but only its atmosphere, 

 loaded with clouds, and which may serve to mitigate the otherwise 

 intense glare of its sunshine " 



Venus, like Mercury, from the orbit being entirely within that of 

 the earth, is never at more than a certain angular distance from' tin- 

 sun ; her greatest angular distance, or elongation, being from 45 to 

 47 12. Her mean apparent diameter i* 18" 9, but varies from U"-fl to 

 61"-2. The real diameter is '976 of that of the earth, or abou- 

 miles, and the volume is -927 of that of the earth. The density is very 

 nearly that of the earth ; but this element, as also the mas*, i* rather 

 uncertain. The uias* of this planet is stated by Laplao* at 5,,' 

 that of the sun, but later writers give ro^mth ** more probable. 

 Mr. Ilotlunan (' Mem. Astrou. Soc ,' vol. xii. pp. 409-415) haa shown 

 strong reasons for supposing that the mass given by Laplace baa been 

 too much diminished by his successors, and that the second fraction 

 above named should be increased by about it* tenth part at least, and 

 probably by more. The most uncertain of all the results of the 

 theory of gravitation is the mass of a planet which has no satellite. 



This planet revolves on iU axis in about i:!' 1 2. UI 7> ; though this, 

 owing to the absence of definite spots on its disc, can har.lly l, con- 

 sidered as \ ery accurate. It* light and heat are to that of the earth as 

 1911 to 1000. 



The elements of the orbit of Venus, which are usually taken from 

 Lindenau's Table* (1810), have lately undergone a searching exami- 

 nation l>y comparison with seven yean' observations made at Green- 

 wich. Messrs. Main and Olaisher, who made this examination, have 

 given their own resulting elements, compared with those deduced for 

 their own epoch, from the above-mentioned tables. In the following 

 list we have adopted the new elements, placing the old one* after them 

 in parentheses ; but taking the eecular variations entirely from those 

 given as the result of the investigation just quoted (' Mem. A 

 Boo.,' vol. xii.). The semiaxi* major alone remains untouched ; for 

 though the examiners found reason to suspect that it was somewhat in 

 error, they did not feel able to decide with certainty a* to the amount 

 of the alteration. 



Slemcntt of Ike Orbit of Venn*. 



Epoch 1836, January 1, 0* mean astronomical time at Beeberg 

 (42 46- east of Greenwich). 



i.axis major 723881U, that of the Earth being assumed as the 

 unit 



Eccentricity -00684668 (-00682285) ; its secular diminution (or dimi- 

 nution in 100 yean i, -00008200. 



Inclination of the orbit to the ecliptic, 8 23' 84"-84 (8* 23' 81"-]1) ; 

 its secular increase, 10"-t)8S. 



Longitudes from the mean equinox of the epoch (1) of the ascending 

 node, 75" 12' 8"-60 (75' 18' 25'); its secular increase (combined with 

 tho precession), 8095"-28 : (2) of the perihelion, 129" 15' 8" (129 11' 

 18"); its secular increase (combined with the precession), 49" 62; of 

 the planet (mean), 882" 1' 86"-23 (332* 1' 33"-l). 



Mean sidere.il motion in 3BSJ days, 2106041"-49 ; sidereal revolution, 

 224 70ii78B9 mean solar days. 



When Venus U to the west of the sun she rises and seta before him, 

 ami wai then colled Phosphorus ami Lucifer by the ancients ; but 

 \\ -ln-n hhe is to the e t of the sun she rises and seta after him, and was 

 then called Heiperus. The old terms of our almanacs, " Morning-star " 

 and " Evening-star," have reference to these positions. 



VENUS, TKANS1T OF. [TBAXSITS or MERC-CRT ASD Vrsm.l 



VRRANT1N. [MAOBEH, CoLot-nrao MATTERS or.] 



