PLANET SATURN. . 395 



May 9. Power 527. The air bciag very clear, I see observations 

 the figure of Saturn nearly the same as last year; the shewing tUe 

 flattening at the poles appears at present sopiewhat le^s ; ^^saturn and^ 

 the equatorial and other regions are still the same. the variations 



May 15, 10^ 30'. I examined the appearance of Sa- '^^^ subject to. 

 turn, and compared it with the engraving representing 

 its figure in last year's volume of the Phil. Trans. The 

 outlines and ali the otkef features of this engraving are 

 far more distinct than we can ever see them in the tele- 

 scope at one view; but it is the very intention of a 

 copper-plate to collect together all that has been success- 

 fully discovered by repeated and occasional perfect 

 glimpses, and to represent it united and distinctly to our 

 inspection. Indeed by looking at the drawings con- 

 tained in books of astionoray this will be found to be 

 the case with them all*. 



The equatorial diameter of my last year's figure is 

 however a very little too short; it should have been to 

 the polar diameter as 35,41 to 32, which is the propor- 

 tion that was ascertained in 1789, from which I have 

 hitherto found no reason to depart. 



The following particulars remain as my last year's 

 observations have established them. 



The flattening at the poles of Saturn is more extensive 

 than it is on the planet Jupiter. The curvalure in high 

 latitudes is also greater than on that planet. At the 

 equator, on the contrary, the curvature is rather less than 

 it is on Jupiter. 



Upon the whole, therefore, the shape of the globe of 

 Saturn is not such as a rotatory motion alone could have 

 given it. n 



I sec the quintuple belt, the division of the ring, a very 

 narrow shadow of the ring across the body, and another 

 broader shadow of the body upon the following part of 

 the ring ; and unless all these particulars are very dis- 

 tinctly visible we cannot expect that our in&truraent 



* For an instance of this, see Tobi;e Mayeri 0/>cra medita. Ap» 

 fendlx Observationum. Ad Tabulam Selenograpbicam Animadversione*^ 

 where the annexed accurate and valuable plate represents the moo« 

 such as it never can be seen in a telescope. 



should 



