A Trip to Venus: A Novel

by John Munro

Thanks to the lofty walls of the crater, which penetrate the clouds and condense their moisture, the land is watered with many streams. These flow into the central lake, which discharges into the surrounding ocean by a rift or chasm in the mountain side. Moreover, there are frequent showers, and heavy dews by night, to refresh the surface of the ground. Thunderstorms occur on the tops of the mountain and in the open sea; but very seldom within the enchanted girdle of the crater. The air is remarkably pure, sweet, and exhilarating, owing doubtless to the high percentage of oxygen it contains, and the absence of foreign matter, such as microbes, dust, and obnoxious fumes. In fact, we all felt a distinct improvement in our health and spirits, a kind of mental intoxication which was really more than a rejuvenescence. Nor was the heat very trying, even in the middle of the day, because although the sun was twice as large as on the earth, he did not rise far above the horizon, and cooling breezes blew from the chilled summit of the cliffs. The vegetation seems to go on budding, flowering, and fruiting perpetually, as in the Elysian Fields of Homer, where

"Joys ever young, unmixed with pain or fear,
Fill the wide circle of the eternal year:
Stern winter smiles on that auspicious clime
The fields are florid with unfading prime;
From the bleak Pole no winds inclement blow,
Mould the round hail, or flake the fleecy snow;
But from the breezy deep the blessèd inhale,
The fragrant murmurs of the western gale."

The mysterious behaviour of the sun was a great puzzle to our astronomer. I have said that he rose very little above the horizon, or in other words the lip of the crater, as might be expected from our high southern latitude; but we soon found that he always rose and sank at the same place. In the morning he peeped above the cliffs, and in the evening he dipped again behind them, leaving a twilight or gloaming (I can scarcely call it dusk), which continued throughout the night. From his fixity in azimuth, Gazen concluded that Schiaparelli, the famous Italian observer, was right in supposing that Venus takes as long to turn about her own axis as she does to go round the sun, and that as a consequence she always presents the same side to her luminary. All that we heard from the natives tended to confirm this view. They told us that far away to the east and west of Womla there was a desert land, covered with snow and ice, on which the sun never shone. We also gathered that the sun rises to a greater and lesser height above the cliffs alternately, thus producing a succession of warmer and cooler seasons; a fact which agrees with Schiaparelli's observation that the axis of the planet sways to and from the sun. Gazen was intensely delighted at this discovery, partly for its own sake, but mainly, I think, because it would afford him an opportunity of crushing the celebrated Pettifer Possil, his professional antagonist, who, it seems, is bitterly opposed to the doctrines of Schiaparelli. But why did the sun rise and set every fifteen hours or thereabout, and so make what I have called a "day" and "night"? Why did he not continue in the same spot, except for the slow change caused by the nutation or nodding of Venus? Gazen was much perplexed over this anomaly, and sought an explanation of it in the refraction of the atmosphere above the cliffs producing an apparent but not a real motion of the orb.

The territory of Womla may be divided into three zones, namely, a central plain under cultivation, a belt of undulating hills, kept as a park or pleasaunce, and a magnificent, nay, a sublime wilderness, next to the crater wall.

The natural wealth of the country is very great. Some of its productions resemble and others are different from those of the earth. We saw gold, silver, copper, tin, and iron, as well as metals which were quite new to us. Some of these had a purple, blue, or green colour, and emitted a most agreeable fragrance. There are granites and porphyries, marbles and petrifactions of the most exquisite grain or tints. Precious stones like the diamond, ruby, sapphire, topaz, emerald, garnet, opal, turquoise, and others familiar or unfamiliar to us, fairly abound, and can be picked up on the shores of the lake. I presume that many of them have been formed on a large scale in chasms of the rock by the volcanic fumes of the crater.

What struck us most of all, however, was the prevalence of phosphorescent minerals which absorbed the sunlight by day, and glimmered feebly in the dusk. Professor Gazen seems to think that the presence of snow and clouds, together with these phosphorescent bodies, may help to account for the mysterious luminosity on the dark side of Venus.

The vegetation is wonderfully rich, varied, and luxuriant. As a rule, the foliage is thick and glossy; but while it is green to blackness in some of the trees, it is parti-coloured or iridescent in others. Many of the flowers, too, are iridescent, or change their hues from hour to hour. The beauty and profusion of the flowers is beyond conception, and some of the loveliest grow on what I should take for palms, ferns, canes, and grasses. A distant forest or woodland rivals the splendid plumage of some tropical bird. We heard of "singing flowers," including a water-lily which bursts open with a musical note, and of many plants which are sensitive to heat as well as touch, and if Gazen be correct, to electricity and magnetism. We saw one in a house which was said to require a change of scene from time to time else it would languish and die.

The borders of the lakes and ponds teemed with corals, delicate seaweeds, and lovely shells. Innumerable fishes of gay and brilliant hues darted and burned in the water like broken rainbows.

Reptiles are not very common, at least, in the cultivated zone; but we saw a few snakes, tortoises, and lizards, all brightly and harmoniously marked. One of the snakes was phosphorescent, and one of the lizards could sit up like a dog, or fly in the air like a swallow. The variety and beauty of the birds, as well as the charm of their song, exceed all description. Most of them have iridescent feathers, several are wingless, and one at least has teeth. The insects are a match for the birds in point of beauty, if not also in size and musical qualities. Many of them are luminescent, and omit steady or flashing lights of every tint all through the night.

There are few large quadrupeds in the country, and so far as we could learn none of these are predaceous. We saw an animal resembling a deer on one hand, and a tapir on the other, as well as a kind of toed horse or hipparion, and a number of domestic pets all strange to us.