SATIN 



5219 



SATURN 



Related Subject*. For further information on 

 the general subject see the following articles in 

 these volumes : 



Astronomy Nebular Hypothesis 



Eclipse Planet 



Jupiter Saturn 



Moon Star 



SAT'IN, a glossy, silken fabric, which is 

 woven in such a way that the threads of the 

 weft are almost all hidden by the warp, thus 

 presenting a more unbroken surface. Satin has 

 a peculiar gleam which no other fabric pos- 

 sesses; its smooth surface reflects rays of light 

 almost like a mirror. Satin is made plain, dam- 

 asked, open-worked, striped or embroidered. 

 As a material for women's dresses satin is not 

 used as much as formerly, its place being taken 

 to a large extent by lighter materials. The 

 chief centers of satin manufacture are Lyons, 

 Genoa and Florence, although large quantities 

 are now made in Great Britain and the United 

 States. The term satin is properly applied only 

 to silk goods; woolen, linen and cotton imita- 

 tions are usually known as sateens. 



SAT 'IRE, the name given by the Romans 

 to a type of poem in which men and manners 

 were held up to ridicule, often of the most 

 scathing sort. With some poets the object 

 of the ridicule was to better the conditions 

 which they satirized; with others mere bitter- 

 ness underlay the writing. Lucilius was the 

 originator of the form, and Juvenal its most 

 famous master. His biting comments on the 

 vicious life of Rome have been imitated by a 

 number of later poets. Dry den's Absalom and 

 Achitophel and MacFlecknoc, Johnson's Lon- 

 don and Pope's Dunciad are among the great 

 satirical poems in English, while Swift's Gulli- 

 ver's Travels, in prose, is one of the greatest 

 satires in any language. In the United States, 

 Lowell, Holmes and Mark Twain made much 

 use of satire in their writings, but with them it 

 had not the fierceness which often distinguished 

 it in classic times. Haliburton is the foremost 

 Canadian satirist. 



SATOLLI, sah toh'lc, FRANCESCO (1839-1910), 

 a Roman Catholic prelate, born at Pcnigia, 

 Italy, and educated in that city. For a time 

 he taught theology at Urban College of the 

 Propaganda, and in 1889 was created arch- 

 bishop of Lcpanto. In that same year he was 

 sent to the United States as papal representa- 

 tive at the centenary celebration of the estab- 

 lishment of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in 

 the United States, and in 1893 returned to 

 same country as first apostolic delegate. Created 

 cardinal in 1896, be returned to Rome in th. 



same year. When Pope Leo died in 1903, many 

 believed that Cardinal Satolli would be elected 

 to succeed him, but the choice of the sacred 

 collere fell upon Giuseppe Sorto (Pius X). 



SATURDAY, sat'urda, the seventh day of 

 the week, the day of the Roman god Saturn. 

 This is the only day named for a Roman deity; 

 all the others have An-lo-Saxon names. Sat- 

 urday is the Sabbath day among the orthodox 

 Jews. Many states have made Saturday after- 

 noon a legal holiday, and it is a growing cus- 

 tom for employers in other states to give their 

 workmen a half holiday. A further advance is 

 the step taken in 1914 by a number of promi- 

 nent department stores in New York City, 

 whereby the stores remain closed all day Sat- 

 urday, as well as Sunday, and the employees 

 are given two holidays each week. 



SAT'URN, the sixth planet in distance from 

 the sun, and next to Jupiter in size. It was 

 known to the ancients and marked their bound- 

 ary of the solar system, beyond which they 

 knew of no stars or planets. Little is definitely 

 known about Saturn. Its average distance 

 from the sun is 886,000,000 miles, but that dis- 

 tance varies 100,000,000 miles over and above 

 the average, on account of the variation in the- 

 planet's orbit. Saturn rotates on its axis in 

 10 hours, 14 minutes, and revolves round the 

 sun in twenty-nine and one-half years. Its 

 surface is about ninety times that of the earth. 

 its volume 770 times, its mass ninety 

 times; but its density is only one-eighth 

 earth's density, or less than that of water. 



Saturn appears as a big, yellow star, outshin- 

 ing all others with the exception of Sirius. 

 The planet has ten satellites and is surrounded 

 by a system of rings such as do not exist any- 

 where else in the solar system. It is best ob- 

 served in late summer or early autumn, in the 

 eastern or southeastern sky, moving southward 

 as the evening advances. 



Saturn's Rings. The ring system of Saturn 

 has been the object of much speculation and 

 study, but the use of modern instruments has 

 enabled astronomers to determine what the 

 rings really arc. In 1610 Galileo, working with 

 a telescope that would be despised in any mod- 

 ern observatory, was puzzled to notice a pccu- 

 surfacc of Saturn for which he 

 could not account. In 1665 Huyghens ex- 

 plained the mystery of Saturn's ring, believing 

 only one to be present. Now, however, it is 

 known that the planet is surrounded by three 

 concentric rings. These rings are composed of 

 myriads of separate meteoric particles, each 



