314 NA TU RE-STUD Y RE VIEW 



from the sun that it gets very little heat from it and would be 

 frozen solid if it had no heat of its own, but it is undoubtedly very 

 hot in itself, although not sufficiently so to give off light. The 

 rings of Saturn which make it such a beautiful object to look at 

 through a telescope are supposed to be composed of meteoric parti- 

 cles each revolving "on its own hook" and all revolving around 

 Saturn in the same direction in which Saturn rotates on its axis. 

 There are several of these rings, one outside the other. There is an 

 outer bright ring which is more than 11,000 miles wide, then a 

 dark ring more than 2,000 miles wide, then another bright ring 

 18,000 miles wide, but which on its inner edge fades into a dusky 

 color and is called the crepe ring. This inner ring is about 10,000 

 miles from Saturn. These rings are about 100 miles in thickness 

 when seen on edge, half of Saturn is seen above and half below ; 

 but when tipped so that we see Saturn in its setting of rings, it is 

 surely a magnificent sight. The outer rings do not rotate so rapid- 

 ly as do the inner ones. 



Saturn has beside its beautiful rings, more than its share of 

 moons, 10 of them, all of which revolve around it outside of the 

 rings. The largest has a diameter of 3,720 miles, but Saturn surely 

 cannot reckon time by months for one of his moons circles around 

 him in 15 days and another in 79 days, while his farthest away 

 little moon only 150 miles through and named Phoebe circles 

 around him in the opposite direction from the other moons and 

 the rings, and her month is 546 days long. Phoebe is a very in- 

 dependent little flapper of a moon and follows her own ways with- 

 out regard to the laws of her elders, which led C. S. Day, Jr., to 

 write the following ode to Phoebe : 



Phoebe, Phoebe, whirling high It prescribes in terms exact 



In our neatly plotted sky Just how every star should act; 



Listen, Phoebe to my lay Tells each little satellite 



Wont you whirl ■'he other way? Where to go to whirl at night. 



All the other stars are good Disobedience incurs 



And revolve the way they should Anger of astronomers, 



Only you of that bright throng Who, you must not think it odd, 



Will persist in going wrong. Are more finicky than God. 



Don't reply what God has said. So, my dear, you better change, 



We have made a law instead; Really we can't rearrange 



Have you never heard of this All our charts from Mars to Hebe, 



Nebular hypothesis? Just to suit a chit, like Phoebe. 



