When Venus appears in the sky she is not often mistaken for any other planet. Among all the planets she is the most readily recognized and the easiest to find. This is due largely to her extreme brilliancy and a peculiar silvery appearance that none of the other planets have; but also, in part, to her limited range in the sky, and her favorable situation for observation. Unlike Mercury, she is far enough away from the sun to be seen above the horizon for as much as three hours after sunset, and is then sufficiently high in the heavens to be seen free from the vapors of the atmosphere at the horizon. Yet, being one of the inferior planets, with her orbit smaller and nearer the sun than that of the earth, she can never get so far from the sun as to be at any uncomfortable height for viewing, and hence, when she can be seen at all, is always an obvious bit of brilliancy and a joy to the beholder. She is never higher in the sky than forty-five degrees, which is half-way between the horizon and the zenith, and is never farther away from the sun than forty-eight degrees. One frequently sees a bright planet higher up in the heavens than this; but it is never Venus nor Mercury. We first begin to notice Venus in the evening sky about six weeks after she has passed superior conjunction. She is then very near the sun, and sets a little less than half an hour after sundown. Evening by evening she grows gradually brighter, mounts higher and higher in the sky and, consequently, sets correspondingly later, until in a little more than seven months after superior conjunction, and about six months after we have begun to watch her, she reaches her greatest elongation east from the sun. At that time she is usually somewhere near forty-five degrees above the sun, and is a very lovely and conspicuous object in the evening sky, setting a little more than three hours after sundown. From this point she begins to travel back toward the sun, still becoming brighter each evening, because she is really coming nearer to us; and in about four or five weeks she attains the greatest brilliancy that she will have as an evening star during the particular revolution she is making. About twelve days after her brightest she will reach the point where she seems to be stationary for a time. This is when she is about to overtake us in our journey around the sun. After a short pause she will move on gradually, her course among the stars then being retrograde or westward; but what we most notice is that she is drawing nearer to the sun, setting earlier each evening, and becoming more and more difficult to see. At the end of about three weeks she is in inferior conjunction, on a line between us and the sun, and invisible. She has run her course as an evening star for nine and a half months, and has been visible anywhere from seven to eight months, the time of her invisibility depending upon the eye of the observer and the conditions of situation and atmosphere.