298 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



show that, as Jupiter and Saturn hold an intermediate position be- 

 tween the sun and the minor planets in respect to size, so those giant 

 orbs hold a corresponding position in respect of inherent heat. Rough- 

 ly speaking, the earth is 8,000 miles, the sun 840,000 miles, in diame- 

 ter, and Jupiter, with his diameter of 82,000 miles, comes midway be- 

 tween these orbs. Now, the sun is a white heat, and the eai'th gives 

 out only what is called obscure heat ; and, if Jupiter's globe is at a red 

 heat, he again comes midway between the sun and the earth. 



We should be led by the theory here maintained to regard the ma- 

 jor planets which travel outside the zone of asteroids as in a sense 

 secondary suns. So -viewed, they could not be regarded as orbs fit for 

 the support of living creatures. Yet, as each of them is the centre of 

 a scheme of dependent worlds, of dimensions large enough to supply 

 room for many millions of living creatures, we should not merely find 

 a raison (T^tre for the outer planet's, but we should be far better able 

 to explain their purpose in the scheme of creation than on any theory 

 hitherto put forward respecting them. Jupiter as an abode of life is a 

 source of wonder and perplexity, and his satellites seem scarcely to 

 serve any useful purpose. He appears as a bleak and desolate dwell- 

 ing-place, and they together supply him with scarcely a tweutieth part 

 of the light which we receive from our moon at full. But, regarding 

 Jupiter as a miniature sun, not indeed possessing any large degree of 

 inherent lustre, but emitting a considerable quantity of heat, we rec- 

 ognize in him the fitting ruler of a scheme of subordinate orbs, whose 

 inhabitants would require the heat which he affords to eke out the 

 small supply which they receive directly from the sun. The Sa- 

 turnian system, again, is no longer mysterious when thus viewed. 

 The strange problem presented by the rings, which naturally conceal 

 the sun from immense regions of the planet for years together in the 

 very heart of the winter of those regions, is satisfactorily solved when 

 the Saturnian satellites are regarded as the abodes of life, and Saturn 

 himself as the source of a considerable proportion of their heat-supply. 

 We do not say that, in thus exhibiting the Jovian and Saturnian sys- 

 tems in a manner which accords with our ideas respecting the laws of 

 life in the universe, we have given irrefragable testimony in favor of 

 our theory. The theory must stand or fall according to the evidence 

 in its favor or against it. But, so long as men believe that there is de- 

 sign in the scheme of the universe, they will be readier to accept con- 

 clusions which exhibit at once the major planets and their satellites 

 as occupying an intelligible position in that scheme, than views which 

 leave the satellites unaccounted for, and present the giant planets them- 

 selves as very questionable abodes for any known orders of living 

 creatures. Cornhill Magazine, 



