The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1897-04-09
VENUS A DEAD PLANET.
The Beautiful Star OF Love IL Old, Life.
less and Cold.

tNnh tOius
A paper on Venus in the Light OF
Recent Discoveries" in the Atlantic
shows how observations at Flagstaff
Ariz.. have led to the conclusion that
the Llanet VEINS always presents the
same side to the sun and is, therefore
lifeless. Here are some of the deduc-
tions about the condition OF the planet:
If there were water present on the
planet, and, we will suppose, original
ly on both sides alike, it seems probable
that it's career would be as follows: AS
the heated air assembled from the center
OF the illuminated side 1t would be-
come chilled as 1t expanded, and, being
unable to hold it's moisture, would pro
coed to deposit 1t in the form of show
ers. Most Of the moisture 1t held would
thus at once be parted with but not
all. A little would he carried round by
the air to the dark side, where, expert.
encing yet greater degree of cold, 1t
would be felt as ice and as ice there II
would remain; for the amount Of mois.
ture which the exceedingly cold air on
its return journey, could support would
the Ice would tend slowly to evaporate
very little of the water vapor woult
find its way back to the bright side
There would thus be constant drair
of water from the bright side to thu
dark, for however little might go ovel
at time practically none would ever
come back. Eventually, therefore, I'M
der this continued state of things, all
the water would be withdrawn from
the Illuminating side and piled up on
the dark one in the form of glacier ice.
On the bright side of the planet there
would thus be no oceans or seas or
rivers or ponds, not even water vapor
in the air, while glaciation would more
or less completely cover the other.
The side we see would be one vast
desert; the side we do not, fields of
perpetual ice. Some corollaries from
this are interesting. One Of these is
that there should be no visible polar
caps, since there would be, not polar
caps, but a polar hemisphere. And
this would be forever hid from US, for
nothing but orbital or aXial libration-
that is, swing Of the portion of the
disk under illumination-could bring
it into view, and in the case of Venus
the orMtal libration is insensible and
the aXial one apparently so. Another
ingenious corollary has been suggested.
1t is that the phosphorescence, as it
is called, of the dark side, faint light
upon it which has hitherto evaded eX-
PLANTATION, may be caused by the reflec-
ton from the ice fields there Of the
light received from the earth, the other
planets and the stars. In Venus, then,
we gaze upon a world which as world
has run its course. Beautiful as she
appears to us, as she glows and spark
les on the twilight sky, it is distance
alone that gives her her seeming love-
illness and endows her with eternal
youth. In truth she is far otherwise.
All the comeliness she may have had
in the morning of her prime, when the
solar system itself was young, has
gone from her never to return. AS
the Japanese prettily put it of wom-
an, the cherry blossom has passed into
the leaf. For she is no longer young;
she is old, wrinkled, dead. Or shall we
not better say she sleeps, though it be
with the sleep from which there is no
awakening For it is fitting that she
should still seem so fair to us, when
she glows athwart the cleaning in the
slowly fading sky-ftting that the
planet of love should seem lovely to
the end.