Venus has no satellite; this fact seems certain. Yet half a dozen or more observers between 1645 and 1768 discovered such a satellite; observed it; followed it! This startling mystery, as it really was, attracted some years ago the attention of a very careful Belgian observer, Stroobant, who examined in a most painstaking manner all the recorded observations. His conclusions were that in almost all cases particular stars (which he identified) were mistaken for a satellite. Where the object seen was not capable of identification, possibly it was a minor planet; whilst in one instance it was probable that it was Uranus which had been seen and regarded as a satellite of Venus. Venus is perhaps the planet which has most impressed the popular mind. For the earliest illustration of this statement we must go as far back as Homer who makes two references to it in the _Iliad_. These, in Pope’s version, run as follows:— “As radiant Hesper shines with keener light, Far beaming o’er the silver host of night.” —xxii. 399 [318]. “The morning planet told th’ approach of light; And fast behind, Aurora’s warmer ray O’er the broad ocean pour’d the golden day.” —xxiii. 281 [226]. The phases of Venus were first discovered by Galileo and were made known to the world, or rather to Kepler, in a mystic sentence which has often been quoted:— “_Hæc immatura, a me jam frustra leguntur—oy._” “These things not ripe; at present [read] in vain [by others] are read by me.” The former sentence transposed becomes— _Cynthiæ figuras æmulatur mater amorum._ The mother of loves [Venus] imitates the phases of Cynthia [the Moon]. Venus revolves round the Sun in 224½ days at a mean distance of about 67 millions of miles. Its apparent diameter varies between 9½″ in superior conjunction, and 62″ in inferior conjunction. The real diameter is about 7500 miles; in other words Venus is nearly as large as the Earth. CHAPTER V. THE EARTH.