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Page 40
Venus may be as near the earth as 22,000,000 miles, and as far
away as 160,000,000. This variation of its distances from the earth
is obviously much greater than that of Mercury, and its consequent
apparent size much more changeable. Its greatest and least apparent
sizes are as ten and sixty-five (Fig. 53).
[Illustration: Fig. 53.--Phases of Venus, and Varions Apparent
Dimensions.]
When Copernicus announced the true theory of the solar system, he
said that if the inferior planets could be clearly seen they would
show phases like the moon. When Galileo turned the little telescope
he had made on Venus, he confirmed the prophecy of Copernicus.
Desiring to take time for more extended observation, and still be
able to assert the priority of his discovery, he published the
following anagram, in which his discovery was contained:
[Page 141]
"H�c immatura a me jam frustra leguntur o. y."
(These unripe things are now vainly gathered by me.)
He first saw Venus as gibbous; a few months revealed it as crescent,
and then he transposed his anagram into:
"Cynthi� figuras �mulatur mater amorum."
(The mother of loves imitates the phases of Cynthia.)
Many things that were once supposed to be known concerning Venus are
not confirmed by later and better observations. Venus is surrounded
by an atmosphere so dense with clouds that it is conceded that
her time of rotation and the inclination of her axis cannot be
determined. She revealed one of the grandest secrets of the universe
to the first seeker; showed her highest beauty to her first ardent
lover, and has veiled herself from the prying eyes of later comers.
Florence has built a kind of shrine for the telescope of Galileo.
By it he discovered the phases of Venus, the spots on the sun,
the mountains of the moon, the satellites of Jupiter, and some
irregularities of shape in Saturn, caused by its rings. Galileo
subsequently became blind, but he had used his eyes to the best
purpose of any man in his generation.
THE EARTH.
Its sign [Symbol].
DISTANCE FROM THE SUN, 92,500,000 MILES. DIAMETER, POLAR, 7899
MILES; EQUATORIAL, 7925-1/2 MILES. AXIAL REVOLUTION, 23H. 56M.
4.09S.; ORBITAL, 365.86. ORBITAL VELOCITY PER MINUTE, 1152.8 MILES.
Let us lift ourselves up a thousand miles from the earth. We see it
as a ball hung upon nothing in empty space. As the drop of falling
water gathers itself [Page 142] into a sphere by its own inherent
attraction, so the earth gathers itself into a ball. Noticing
closely, we see forms of continents outlined in bright relief, and
oceanic forms in darker surfaces. We see that its axis of revolution
is nearly perpendicular to the line of light from the sun. One-half
is always dark. The sunrise greets a new thousand miles every hour;
the glories of [Page 143] the sunset follow over an equal space,
180� behind. We are glad that the darkness never overtakes the
morning.
[Illustration: Fig. 54.--Earth and Moon in Space.]
_The Aurora Borealis._
While east and west are gorgeous with sunrise and sunset, the north
is often more glorious with its aurora borealis. We remember that
all worlds have weird and inexplicable appendages. They are not
limited to their solid surfaces or their circumambient air. The
sun has its fiery flames, corona, zodiacal light, and perhaps a
finer kind of atmosphere than we know. The earth is
[Page 144]
not without its inexplicable surroundings. It has not only its
gorgeous eastern sunrise, its glorious western sunset, high above
its surface in the clouds, but it also has its more glorious northern
dawn far above its clouds and air. The realm of this royal splendor
is as yet an unconquered world waiting for its Alexander. There are
certain observable facts, viz., it prevails mostly near the arctic
circle rather than the pole; it takes on various forms--cloud-like,
arched, straight; it streams like banners, waves like curtains in
the wind, is inconstant; is either the cause or result of electric
disturbance; it is often from four hundred to six hundred miles
above the earth, while our air cannot be over one hundred miles.
It almost seems like a revelation to human eyes of those vast,
changeable, panoramic pictures by which the inhabitants of heaven
are taught.
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