Even under the reign of perpetual summer the fields and trees find time and opportunity to rest and restore their productive forces.

The circularity of Venus’s orbit, and the consequently insignificant change in the sun’s distance and heating effect, are other elements to be considered in estimating the singular constancy in the operation of natural agencies upon that interesting planet, which, twin of the earth though it be in stature, is evidently not its twin in temperament.

And next as to the all-important question of atmosphere.  In what precedes, the presence of an atmosphere has been assumed, and, fortunately, there is very convincing evidence, both visual and spectroscopic, that Venus is well and abundantly supplied with air, by which it is not meant that Venus’s air is precisely like the mixture of oxygen and nitrogen, with a few other gases, which we breathe and call by that name.  In fact, there are excellent reasons for thinking that the atmosphere of Venus differs from the earth’s quite as much as some of her other characteristics differ from those of our planet.  But, however it may vary from ours in constitution, the atmosphere of Venus contains water vapor, and is exceedingly abundant.  Listen to Professor Young: 

“Its [Venus’s] atmosphere is probably from one and a half to two times as extensive and as dense as our own, and the spectroscope shows evidence of the presence of water vapor in it.”

And Prof.  William C. Pickering, basing his statement on the result of observations at the mountain observatory of Arequipa, says:  “We may feel reasonably certain that at the planet’s [Venus’s] surface the density of its atmosphere is many times that of our own.”

We do not have to depend upon the spectroscope for evidence that Venus has a dense atmosphere, for we can, in a manner, see her atmosphere, in consequence of its refractive action upon the sunlight that strikes into it near the edge of the planet’s globe.  This illumination of Venus’s atmosphere is witnessed both when she is nearly between the sun and the earth, and when, being exactly between them, she appears in silhouette against the solar disk.  During a transit of this kind, in 1882, many observers, and the present writer was one, saw a bright atmospheric bow edging a part of the circumference of Venus when the planet was moving upon the face of the sun—­a most beautiful and impressive spectacle.

Even more curious is an observation made in 1866 by Prof.  C.S.  Lyman, of Yale College, who, when Venus was very near the sun, saw her atmosphere in the form of a luminous ring.  A little fuller explanation of this appearance may be of interest.