JOURNAT, AND PROCEEDINGS, I2I 
mysteries, you will understand why ancient and modern poet and 
sage alike sang of her beauty. You catch the spirit of him who wrote 
‘© For a breeze of morning moves, 
And the planet of love is on high, 
Beginning to fade in the light that she loves, 
On a bed of Daffodil sky, 
To fade in the light of the sun she loves, 
To fade in his light and die.” 
Before we enter upon a proper consideration of the planet 
Venus, let us, for the benefit of beginners, try to get a clear under- 
standing of our view point—the Earth. ‘Two planets revolve 
between us and the Sun; the first is Mercury, the second is Venus. 
The first revolves at the mean distance of 36 millions of miles from 
the Sun, the second at 67 millions, and the Earth at 93 millions. 
Then outside and beyond our orbit we have Mars, 139 millions of 
miles ; then a belt of minor planets beginning with Flora, 201 mil 
lions, and ending with Hygeia, 288 millions ; then Jupiter with his 
five moons, 477 millions ; Saturn with his nine moons, 871 millions ; 
Uranus with four moons, 1752 millions, and Neptune with one 
moon, 2743 millions of miles. Besides these we have a number of 
known and unknown comets, thousands of meteors and shooting 
stars. This constitutes our solar system, which is totally distinct 
and separate, to the finite mind, from what is known as the stellar 
universe, the nearest star of which is “A Centauri,” 25 billions of 
miles. Prof. Alfred Russell Wallace, in his latest book on astron- 
omy, says truly that few of us have any visual idea of what a 
million miles mean, and tells us that if a wall 100 feet long and 20 
feet wide was covered with paper and was ruled into 4 inch squares, 
and every alternate square was covered with a black spot YY of an 
inch round, we could then see one million spots. Extend each spot 
a mile in length, place them end to end, join them together, and we 
would have a million miles in length. Multiply this length twenty- 
six times, and we have twenty-six million miles—the mean distance 
from the earth to Venus. Revolving around the Sun in 225 days, so 
flooded with his light that she needs no satellite such as the more 
distant planets have, yet shining with a brilliancy at times to cast a 
shadow upon the earth. Piercing the azure of the sky when the sun 
is above the horizon and shines in full daylight, peerless among the 
