Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1913-04-11
WORLD OF REPTILES?
VENUS PICTURED AS BEING THE
ABODE OF MONSTERS.
French Astronomer, Supposed to Be
FIammarlon, Paints Lurld Scenes
Of Young Planet-Covered
With Sitting Mist of Air
and Hot Water.

J Paris.-"Life on the Planet Venus
is the title of a remarkable article
which has just appeared in the Paris
magazine, Lectures Pour Tous, and
has attracted widespread attention
from the boldness of its 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 geologists.
1T is" he says. "a nightmare plan
ct, 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 rot
ting vegetable matter. From this
spring forests Of toadstools and ferns
as high as date palms, and forests In
which all creeping and Shiny crea-
lures that are vermin here take gt
gantic proportions.
Insects are monsters there. Cen
tipedes yard long trail on their soft
feet. Enormous spiders, black and
velvety, possess jaws like wolftraps,
filled with poison.
I'm the prairies of giant moss
grass" continues this writer, "lfves
the diplodoccus, as high as a house,
always endeavoring to appease its
Unsuitable hunger and keeping a
lookout for q swift onslaught of the
carnivorous triceratops. which 1t can
not hope to escape.
Everywhere are sinister croakings,
whistlings, forked tongues and the
slaughter of giant saurians, which
fight for the supremacy Of the world.
There are no flowers among the riot
GUS fern-like vegetation and no birds,
but in the fiery air are seen constant
ly the membranous wings, ten yards
across, and the swapping jaws Of
pterodactyls.
1.-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 the masts over the spasm-
shaken backs and swollen necks sur
mounted by yipers' heads.
Twilight on Venus Is blood red.
The angry sun, as big as milestone,
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 crest of the waves to roar In
the darkness he reflects in his eyes,
pupilless and hard as glass, beau
tiful star, accompanied by little
luminous point, which Is the queen Of
heaven of Venus. It Is our earth and
the moon, her satellite.
"This writer thinks that owing to
the relative warmness Of the poles OF
Venus while this period of evolution
Is proceeding in the torrid zone.
which occupies the greater part Of the
surface of the planet, 1t Is possible
that at the poles species are already
appearing which did not come until
after the secondary epoch on the
earth, such as great pachyderms COW
cred 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 flints to protect his food
from great, carnivorous animals"