The seasons, however, on Venus and the earth would not have much resemblance to each other. The axis of the earth is inclined to the ecliptic nearly twenty-three and one-half degrees, so that we receive the sun’s rays with varying degrees of obliquity during our yearly journeying around it, which is the cause of our agreeable change of seasons. Venus travels with her axis so slightly inclined to her orbit (a little more than three degrees) that each particular parallel of latitude receives practically the same amount of sunlight every day in the year, though at different parallels the sun’s rays strike with varying degrees of obliquity. However delightful or disagreeable the climate may be, there are no changes of seasons to speak of, and one could find variety only by going from place to place on the planet. She receives no compensation for this monotony by alternately receding from and approaching the sun as Mercury does, or by librations, such as he has. Her orbit being, as we have seen, so nearly circular as to permit of only small variations in her distance from the sun, and her axis so nearly perpendicular to her orbit, it follows that she has nothing to mark the year; and, whether she turns on her axis many times or only once during a revolution, life on Venus would be very monotonous to any one accustomed to our delightful variety of climate and seasons. Still, there is nothing in this monotony to prevent Venus from being a fairly comfortable habitation in some parts for such beings as inhabit the earth. The only real obstacle to habitability on Venus would be her lack of rotation and all that it involves. Since we are not sure that we can see the surface of Venus, we cannot say what that surface is. Nevertheless, there is some reason to suspect that we would find there mountains of vast height. Certain irregularities have been observed at times, of a kind to indicate mountains covered with snow, extending beyond the clouds. They have been estimated to be many miles higher than any mountains we have on earth, their height depending somewhat upon the temperament of the observer. But inasmuch as these same high mountains have sometimes been thought to be only masses of clouds, it seems hardly safe to pronounce definitely upon them. TRANSITS