284 REPORT ON THE DISCOVERY AND NAME 



vel etiam ultra quintum alii circumvagari, qui propter obscuritatem 

 nondum sint visi." * 



As Galileo had given the names of the " Medicean stars " to the 

 satellites of Jupiter, in honor of the liberal prince and family reign- 

 ing at Florence, Cassini proposed to call the satellites of Saturn 

 " Astra Lodoicea," in honor of Louis XIV., under whose reign and 

 patronage they were discovered. But posterity has rejected these 

 and all other attempts to affix contemporary names to the newly 

 discovered planetary bodies. 



The existence of Cassini's four satellites of Saturn was almost 

 doubted in England, till the Astronomer Pound set up at Wansted a 

 telescope of 123 feet focal distance, presented by Huyghens to the 

 Royal Society and still in their possession. This took place in 

 1718.t The improvements soon made by Bradley in the con- 

 struction of the telescope brought these satellites within the range 

 of observation by instruments of reasonable dimensions. Captain 

 Smyth quotes a remark from an astronomical work of Mr. J. 

 Harris, F. R. S. in 1729, to this effect, that it is "highly probable 

 that there may be more satellites than the five moving round this 

 remote planet : but their distance is so great, and their light may be 

 so obscure, as that they have hitherto escaped our eyes and perhaps 

 may continue to do so for ever ; for I don't think that our telescopes 

 will be much further improved " ! | 



In 1789 Sir William Herschel completed his forty-foot reflector. 

 He had suspected the existence of a sixth satellite as early as the 



* Chrisliani Hugenii Cosmotheoros, sive de Terris ccelestibus eariimque ornatu 

 conjectures ad Constantinum Hugenium fratrem, GuUelmo III. Magna Britannice 

 Regi a secretis, Lib. II. Oper. I. p. 698. 



+ Abridgment of the Transactions of the Royal Society, IV. p. 322. 



I Celestial Cycle, I. p. 198. 



