Venus is a little larger than the Earth, or 9360 miles diameter; and moves round the Sun in 224½ of our days, at the rate of 80,955 miles every hour. From faint spots seen upon her surface, Mr. Shroeter apprehends she revolves on her axis in 23 hours, 21 minutes; that her surface is irregular like that of the Moon, and some of her mountains four miles high. The atmosphere of Venus has been calculated to be 50 miles high: and the Sun would appear to the inhabitants of this planet twice as large as to us. When Venus is to the west of the Sun, she is a morning star; when to the east of him, an evening star: her orbit or track is included by the Earth’s, and as both move the same way, she appears to be on one side of the Sun longer than the 224½ days she is in going round him. The axis of Venus is said by some astronomers to incline 75 degrees to the axis of her orbit: and therefore her seasons vary very fast, the Sun passing over more of her from pole to pole in one day, than over the Earth in a quarter of a year. Hence the heated places of this planet have time to cool: which suggest to our ideas that provision has been made for inhabitants, that they might not suffer by their vicinity to the Sun; this circumstance also gives her two winters and two summers at her equator, and indicates her inhabited. The discovery lately made by Mr. Shroeter, of a light faintly extended beyond the bounds of direct solar illumination, when she has her falcated appearance like the Moon near to her change, strengthens this probability: as these are signs of twilight, and of an atmosphere. This astronomer has also observed her to have considerable mountains; another character of a globe suited for habitation. The EARTH is the third planet in the order of the system: 8244 miles diameter—moves at the rate of 68,856 miles every hour, and hence completes its revolution in its orbit (the Ecliptic) in 365 days and ¼. The MOON’s diameter is 2183 miles; she moves with respect to the Earth 2290 miles in her orbit every hour; and goes round the Earth from change to change in 29 days and a half. But having devoted so much of this tract to the phænomena of the Earth, as well as its satellite the Moon, we proceed to