The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1912-10-30
And Filled With Hideous
Living Creatures.
Beginning OF PLANET LIFE
From Which Very Strange
EvOlutiOnS are. Expect
ed Ito Come.
FLAMMARION'S LATEST IDEAS

Lie on the gldneI venus is the
title of a remarkable article which
has just appeared in the Paris mag
azine, Lectures Pour Tous, and has
attracted widespread attention from
the boldness of it's theories.
According to the writer who, al
though anonymous, is believed to
be Camille Flammarion, Venus,
which is younger than the earth
and older than Mercury, is now
passing through the equivalent of
what is called the secondary period
by biologists.
1T is" Sc says, "a nightmare
planet, a nest of reptiles and a
swarm of monsters. Under the
sitting mist of air, saturated with
hot water, lies a vast miry swamp,
covered with rotting vegetable mat
ter. From this spring forests of
toadstools and ferns as high as date
palms, and forests in which all
creeping and Shiny creatures that
are yermin here, take gigantic pro-
portions.
Insects are monsters there. Cen
tipedes a yard long trail on their
soft feet. Enormous spiders, black
and velyety, possess jaws like wolf
traps, filled with poison"
I'm the prairies of giant moss
grass" continues this writer, Lives
the diplodoccus, as high as a house,
always endeavoring to appease its
Unsuitable hunger and keeping n
lookout for a swift onslaught of
the carnivorous triceratops, which
it cannot hope to escape.
Everywhere are sinister croak-
ings. whistlings, forked tongues
and the slaughter of giant saurians,
which fight for the supremacy of
the world. There are no flowers
among the riotous fernlike vegeta-
ton and no birds, but in the fiery
air are seen constantly the men,
braneous wings, 10 yards across,
and the snapping jaws of pterodac-
tyls.
THE hot seas, filled with floating
weeds, are above all full of innum-
cradle living beings, octopi with
livid tentacles, colossal fish and
zoophytes like living flowers, while
here and there in the maddened
whirlpools fearful dragons rise
from the abyss, raising like masts
over spasm-shaken heads and swol-
len necks surmounted by vipers
heads.
Twilight on Venus is blood red.
The angry sun, as big as a mill
stone, descends to the horizon in
the smoke of volcanoes and storm
clouds. And black night comes
lighted by no moon and full of
clamors and horrors.
But when the ichthyosaurus
rises on the crests of waves to
roar in the darkness, he reflects in
Mo SyVo, pupiileSS anu HdIu as
glass, a beautiful star, accompanied
by a little luminous point, which is
the queen of heaven of Venus. 1t
is our earth and the moon, her sat
elite.
This writer thinks that owing
to the relative warmness of the
poles of Venus while this period of
evolution is proceeding in the tor
rid zone, which occupies the great
er part of the surface of the planet,
it is possible that the poles species
are already appearing, which did
not come until long after the sec
ondary epoch on the earth, such as
great pachyderms covered with
hair.
And perhaps near those poles
dwells already in caves, hairy be-
Ing with projecting jaws, brutal
and savage, but within whose thick
skull pass some glimmerings of
reason, and who is busily engaged
In striking sparks from fiints to
protect his food from great carniv-
orous animals. "-(Paris Cor. New
York Times.