Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/373

 noxious metallic gas, Venerium, out of the Venus atmosphere, ere it enters our lungs. A small admixture of this, to us, new gaseous metal, which Venus has added to our chemistry, is the chief cause of the disagreement of Venus's atmosphere with our Earthean constitution.

The large business that goes on daily with Venus is now terribly cut up with competition. Still, with the large scale of modern operation, and the prompt and cheap deliveries through the salutary opposition of the fast expresses, the thing can be made to pay. Brown and I, ever on the alert for a business turn, strolled through the Venus markets, picking up some promising wares; for, in view of any such chances, we had both provided ourselves with adequate energy-credits. Brown junior, too, reported to us very satisfactory arrangements in his hardware and energy trade. But, not to waste more time over this now so familiar scene, let us pass to what will afford us much greater diversity of feature and incident, namely, our—

I may here mention, as good illustration of interplanetary travel, that all of our large and varied company, excepting perhaps a few young children, had previously travelled as far as Venus—many indeed had been there many times over. A large proportion had been also as far as Mercury. A good many had been still further on to Vulcan. But few indeed, excepting old White himself and his select crew, had been to the Sun. Indeed the risks of this voyage, to say nothing of the awful physical aspects