THE PLANETS, ABE THEY INHABITED \ 



almost invariable position among the stars. On the contrary, 

 their position with relation to the fixed stars is subject to a 

 change so rapid that it must be sensible to Saturnian observers, 

 the stars seen on one side of the rings passing to the other side 

 from hour to hour. Secondly, no such phenomenon as a solar 

 eclipse of fifteen years' duration, or any phenomenon bearing 

 the least analogy to it, can take place on any part of the globe 

 of Saturn. 



Among the continental astronomers who have recently 

 reviewed this question, the most eminent is Dr. Madler, to whose 

 observations and researches science is so largely indebted for the 

 information we possess respecting the physical character of the 

 surface of the Moon and Mars. 



This astronomer maintains, like Herschel, that the rings hold 

 a fixed position in the firmament, their edges being projected 011 

 parallels of declination, and that, consequently, all celestial 

 objects are carried by the diurnal motion in circles parallel to 

 them, so that in the same latitude of Saturn the same stars are 

 always covered by the rings, and the same stars are always seen 

 at the same distance from them. 



This is also incorrect. The zones of the firmament covered 

 by the rings are not bounded by parallels of declination, but by 

 curves which intersect these parallels at various angles. 



Dr. Madler enters into elaborate calculations of the solar 

 eclipses which take place during the winter half of the Satur- 

 nian year. He computes the duration of these various eclipses in 

 the different latitudes of Saturn, and gives a table, by which it 

 would appear that the solar eclipses which take place behind 

 the inner ring vary in length from three months to several 

 years, that the duration of the eclipses produced by the outer 

 ring is still greater, and that the duration of the appearance of 

 the sun in the interval between the rings varies in different 

 latitudes from ten days to seven and eight months.* 



These various conclusions and computations of Bode, Herschel, 

 Madler, and others, and the reasoning on which they are based, 

 are altogether erroneous ; and the solar phenomena which they 

 describe have no correspondence with, nor any resemblance to, 

 the actual uranographical phenomena. 



13. The problem of the appearance of the system of rings in 

 the Saturnian firmament, and their effect in occulting and 

 eclipsing occasionally and temporarily the sun, the eight moons, 

 and other celestial objects, was fully discussed, and, for the 

 first time, definitely solved in a memoir by the author of 



* See Populare Astronomic, von Dr. J. H. Madler. Berlin, 1852. 

 53 



