f6 THE BORDERLAND OF SCIENCE. 



indicated sufficiently the position we were in. We 

 had but to look towards the heavens to see the tiny 

 but brilliant orb which is the sun of Saturn, and at 

 once we knew where Saturn's rotation had carried us. 



We now passed to the so-called dark ring. This 

 ring is, however, no darker, in one sense, than the 

 others. The seeming darkness and brightness of the 

 rings are not at all due to the darkness or brightness 

 of the matter composing them. The fact really is, 

 that the dark ring consists of a number of very small 

 bodies, all travelling nearly in the same level, and so 

 widely scattered that the observer on earth can see 

 through the ring the deep blue background of the sky. 

 This deep blue background, combined with the yellowish 

 red light which these bodies reflect, produces the 

 purplish brown colour which terrestrial telescopists 

 recognise in this ring. 



But when we reached the ring we found that the 

 small satellites are immersed in a vaporous envelope, 

 not forming atmospheres for the satellites severally, 

 but constituting a somewhat flattened ring of vapour, 

 through which they travel. They actually carry with 

 them, however, considerable masses of this vapour; 

 and hence some very remarkable effects follow. For 

 though the satellites are severally minute, their vapour- 

 coats extend pretty widely, and thus, though collisions 

 rarely occur in this ring between the actual satellites, 

 their vaporous envelopes are continually encountering, 

 so that the general atmospheric ring is loaded with 

 detached vaporous masses which only diffuse themselves 



