But what must the inhabitants of Mercury be? We are above twice the distance from the sun that they are. They must be almost mad with vivacity. Like most of the negroes, they are without memory; never reflecting; acting by starts and at random: in short Mercury is the bedlam of the universe. The sun appears there nine times larger than it does to us: the light they receive is so brilliant that our finest days would be but twilight in comparison of theirs; perhaps they would find them so dark as not to be able to distinguish one thing from another. The heat to which they are accustomed is so intense, that they would be almost frozen in our Africa. In all probability our iron, silver and gold would be melted in their world, and only be seen in a liquid state, as we in general have water, which in some degrees of cold becomes a solid body. The inhabitants of Mercury would not imagine that in another world those liquors, which perhaps form their rivers, are the hardest of all bodies. Their year lasts but three months. The length of their day is not known to us, because Mercury is so small and so near the sun, that it exceeds the art of all our astronomers to observe him with sufficient accuracy to determine what sort of motion he has on his centre: the inhabitants, I think, must wish it to be performed in a short time, for scorched as they are with the fierceness of the sun, the coolness of night is undoubtedly very desirable to them. The part which by rotation is deprived of the sun's light, is illumined by Venus and the earth, which must appear very large. As to the other planets, being farther off than the earth, they, seen from Mercury, appear much smaller than to us, and afford very little light to that planet. I don't feel so much for its inhabitants on that account, replied the Marchioness, as from the inconvenience they must suffer from such excessive heat. Let us try if we can't relieve them in some way. Is it not probable they have long and plentiful showers, such as we are told fall continually for four months together, in our hot countries, at the seasons when the heat is most intense?