File:Uranography. and Atlas (1850) (14596603347).jpg

Identifier: uranographyatlas00kend (find matches)
Title: Uranography. & Atlas
Year: 1850 (1850s)
Authors: Kendall, Bzra O. (from old catalog)
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Publisher: (n.p.)
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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, at a maximum, as from the earth; it may, therefore,in some measure, supply the want of a moon. The earth, asseen from this planet, is large and brilliant, and our moonappears as bright to them as Mars does to us. This last isconsiderably fainter there than here. For the other planets,there is no very essential difference whether seen from Mer-cury or the earth; except that, in the former case, all theretrograde motions are confined to a much smaller arc, and toa shorter time. None of the bodies of the system present toit any perceptible phases. One pound at the earth, has the weight of 9Jounces at Mercury; the fall of a body in the firstsecond of time is 9J feet; and the length of a pen-dulum vibrating seconds is 1.89 feet. These mag-nitudes are probably nearly the same for all partsof the globe, as no compression has yet been de-tected, and the rotation, considered as linear, isvery slow. Mercury was considered by the mythologists asthe messenger of the gods, and was called Hermes,
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VENUS. 211 Hermes Trismegistos, Thoth, Taut, &c. Theastronomical sign of this planet $ is supposed by-some to represent the caducens with which theheathens furnished Mercury: it consisted of asceptre entwined by two serpents in the form oftwo equal semi-circles, and winged at the top. SEC. 9. 9 VENUS, The second planet from the sun, from whichshe is distant somewhat more than 69,000,000 ofmiles, moves at the rate of between 75,000 and80,000 miles per hour, and completes her annualrevolution in 224 days 16f hours, nearly, and herdiurnal rotation in rather less than 24 hours.*Her magnitude is nearly the same as.that of theearth; her diameter being about 7630 miles. Thecircumference of her orbit is at least 433,000,000of miles. Venus is easily distinguished by her silver-whiteappearance, and by surpassing *iti brightness all theother stars and planets. She is sometimes so bril-liant as to be seen in full day by the naked eye.This phenomenon arises from her very dense at- * Sir Wm. He

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