ii4 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



number of revolutions to the distance at which it now 

 revolves, in such a tempered climate it gradually lost the 

 heat it had received; and the vapours which, rising from 

 its surface, were diffused more and more around it, gradually 

 ceased to spread out into tails. Nor did new vapours 

 ascend any longer in such abundance as to increase those 

 already given off; in short, the vapours already surrounding 

 it continued by causes which we will immediately mention 

 to float round it and preserved to it the mark of its former 

 comet-like nature in a constant Ring, notwithstanding that 

 its body exhaled the heat in it, and at last became a settled 

 and purified planet. We shall now indicate the secret of 

 the process that enabled the planet to preserve its ascend- 

 ing vapours in a freely floating state ; nay, that has changed 

 them from an atmosphere diffused around it into the form 

 of a ring entirely separated from it. I assume that Saturn 

 had a rotation round its axis; and nothing more than 

 this is necessary to unveil the whole mystery. No other 

 mechanism than this alone has brought about the said 

 phenomenon on the planet by an immediate mechanical 

 result; and I make bold to affirm that in the whole of 

 nature there are but few things that can be referred to so 

 intelligible an origin as this peculiarity of the heavens, 

 which may be shown to have evolved itself out of the 

 rude state of its first formation. 



The vapours that ascended from Saturn had that move- 

 ment in themselves which they had had as parts of its 

 surface in its rotation round its axis, and continued freely 

 so to move at the height to which they had ascended. 

 The particles which ascended near the equator of the 

 planet must have had the most rapid movement; and 

 from the equator to the poles their motion must have 



