A bistatic radar experiment in 1994, involving reception on Earth of a specularly reflected, linearly polarized 13-centimeter-wavelength signal transmitted from the Magellan spacecraft in orbit around Venus, has established that the surface materials viewed at low and intermediate altitudes on Venus have a relative dielectric permittivity of 4.0 +/- 0.5. However, bistatic results far the Maxwell Montes highlands imply an electrically lossy surface with an imaginary dielectric permittivity of -i 100 +/- 50, probably associated with a specific conductivity of about 13 mhos per meter. Candidates for highlands surface composition include ferroelectrics, a thin frost of elemental tellurium, or a plating of magnetite or pyrites.