THE QUARTERLY 
PouURNAL.OF SCIENCE, 
JANUARY, 1874. 
re oTHE SATURNIAN) SYSTEM, 
By RicHarD A. Proctor, B.A. (Cambridge). 
Author of “ Saturn,” “The Sun,” ““The Moon,” &c. 
[7 has always appeared to me, since first I studied the 
subject of Saturn and his system, that our books on 
astronomy fail to indicate effectively the position which 
this noble planet, and the scheme over which he holds sway, 
bear in the economy of the solar system. The remark extends 
to Jupiter, and in a less degree to Uranus and Neptune. 
There is to my mind something most incongruous between 
the true teachings of .astrenomy respecting the giant planets, 
and the notions complacently presented in book after book 
on elementary astronomy, and even in treatises by masters 
of the subject. We have the astronomy of the ancients 
and the modern astronomy intermixed. We see rightly 
taught the dimensions and general aspect of the different 
planets, but we find these bodies classed together precisely 
as they very reasonably were when astronomers knew 
little more than that there are, besides the sun and 
moon, the planets Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and 
Jupiter. The orbits of these bodies are plotted down in 
a series of concentric and equidistant circles, on which 
very commonly are shown pictures (save the mark) of 
the several planets, and the reader is left to combine the 
utterly erroneous notions thus indicated with such ideas as 
he may derive from the array of numbers contained in the 
tables of planetary elements. Nor in the verbal description 
of the planets is any stress laid upon the characteristic 
peculiarities which distinguish the outer family of planets 
from the inner. Differences are stated, but mere statement 
in such cases counts for very little; the impression really 
conveyed is, that whereas the earth, and Mars, and Venus, 
and Mercury are so many smaller worlds, Jupiter, and 
Saturn, and Uranus, and Neptune are as many larger 
worlds ; and whatever peculiarities distinguish these outer 
‘and larger planets from the rest are discussed with direct 
VOL. IV. (N.S.) B 
