Page:In the high heavens.djvu/44

 family, it is natural to inquire how far the other planets may be constituted in the same way as our own. Most of the questions which we should like to ask on this head are such as, unhappily, cannot be answered. Especially should we like to know whether the other planets are inhabited, but on this our greatest telescopes can give us no information whatever, and we can only form the vaguest surmises. The features that would be discernible on the neighbouring planets must be immense indeed. It would, for example, be utterly impossible for us to recognise towns, even if such objects as towns existed, though it might still be possible to discern the broader outlines of extensive continents or mighty oceans. We could also observe the clouds, if clouds existed, around a neighbouring planet, because owing to their extent and to their position on the outside they would be comparatively easy to see, while the incessant changes of the clouds would render them an attractive feature to the observer.

We have accordingly in this chapter decided to say what we can with respect to the clouds and oceans which are to be met with on some of the other planets. Even here, however, we must be content with a knowledge which is much more scanty than an intelligent curiosity would desire. In many of the planets we can see little or nothing of this kind that can be certainly made out, while even on those which we can see best it is only the very broadest and most striking features that can be discerned. Of Venus, unhappily, we can see nothing or next to nothing that would give us any information as to the presence or the absence of oceans and clouds. The loveliness of the evening star is due to the brilliancy of the sun-beams in which she is decked,