200 BOOK OF NATURE LAID OPEN. 



be surrounded by an atmosphere like the earth, her 

 light and heat are said to be twice as much as ours. 

 Like the sun, this brilliant planet has her spots ; like 

 the moon, she has her phases, and she moves at the 

 rate of upwards of 80,000 miles an hour ! Venus 

 appears in the heavens the brightest of all the pla- 

 nets, and, according as she is situated, is sometimes 

 called the Morning, and sometimes the Evening 

 Star. What is called the transit of Venus, is the 

 passing of this planet over the sun's face, which hap- 

 pens only twice in about one hundred and twenty 

 years. 



Next to Venus comes our Earth, attended by her 

 constant companion, or satellite, the Moon. The 

 diameter of the Earth may be computed to be about 

 7.964 miles, her distance from the sun ninety five 

 millions of miles, and, moving at the rate of 68,000 

 miles an hour, she completes her annual revolution 

 in 365 days and somewhat less than six hours, all 

 the while whirling round on her axis, once in twenty- 

 four hours, with such velocity that the inhabitants of 

 the equator are carried round at the rate of 1,045 

 miles, and those in the latitude of London about 644 

 miles in an hour. 



We have already explained several of the pheno- 

 mena resulting from the motion of the Earth; but 

 there is one astronomical fact we will here mention, 

 which may sound strange in the ears of some of ouy 

 readers, viz, that we are actually nigher the sun in 

 winter than in summer! Were it not for this, it is 

 presumed that the severity of our winters (being chief- 



