Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/376

 here as compared to our earth, or rather as compared with the earth, Venus, Mars, and various smaller worlds, whose climatic circumstances permit of the presence and important functions of water! Mercury, indeed, supplies a step of decided departure towards Vulcan; but having this time given Mercury the slip, we plunged at once into Vulcanian peculiarities. The whole of the little planet looks like a lump of metal, and the leaden hue throughout has at first a non-natural and depressing effect. But this soon wears off as we get accustomed to the people, their gentle and pleasant ways, and their remarkably intelligent faces, in spite of their somewhat planetoid contour of figure. Certain metals enter largely into the organic physique, and give a curious aspect alike to animal and plant substance. The atmosphere is partly composed of metallic vapours, and there are small lakes or seas which supply those vapours, especially during the heat of the day, and between which and the atmosphere there is constant interchange.

Nothing is more amusing to us, or indeed more utterly astonishing, than to see the Vulcanians washing and bathing in these very odd "waters."

They cannot do this until the day is well on, for all their seas are regularly frozen every night, the ice, as we might call it, beginning on the surface even ere the scorching mighty sun has quite touched the horizon, and not being completely thawed until a good hour or two of morning. Hence the dangers