706 COSMOS. 



1610, Galileo informed Kepler that " Saturn consisted of three 

 stars, which were in mutual contact with one another." In 

 this observation lay the germ of the discovery of Saturn's 

 ring. Hevelius, in 1656, described the variations in its form, 

 the unequal opening of the handles (ansa3), and their occa- 

 sional total disappearance. The merit of having given a 

 scientific explanation of all the phenomena of Saturn's ring 

 belongs, however, to the acute observer Huygens, who, in 

 1655, in accordance with the suspicious custom of the age, 

 and like Galileo, concealed his discovery in an anagram of 

 eighty-eight letters. Dominicus Cassini was the first who 

 observed the black stripe on the ring, and, in 1684, he recog- 

 nised that it is divided into at least two concentric rings. I 

 have here collected together what has been learnt during a 

 century regarding the most wonderful and least anticipated of 

 all the forms occurring in the heavenly regions, a form which 

 has led' to ingenious conjectures regarding the original mode 

 of formation of the secondary and primary planets. 



The spots upon the sun were first observed through tele- 

 scopes by Johann Fabricius of East Friesland, and by Galileo 

 (at Padua or Venice as is asserted) ; in the publication of the 

 discovery, in June 1611, Fabricius incontestibly preceded 

 Galileo by one year, since his first letter to the Burgomaster, 

 Marcus Welser, is dated the 4th of May, 1612. The earliest 

 observations of Fabricius were made, according to Arago's 

 careful researches in March 1611,*' and, according to Sir David 

 Brewster, even as early as towards the close of the year 1610 ; 

 while Christopher Scheiner did not carry his own observations 

 back to an earlier period than April 1611, and it is probable 

 that he did not seriously occupy himself with the solar spots 

 until the October of the same year. Concerning Galileo we 



* See Arago, in the Annuaire for 1842, pp. 460-476 (Decouvertes 

 des taches Solaires et de la ^Rotation du Soleil). Brewsler -(Martyrs 

 of Science, pp. 36 and 39), places the first observation of Galileo in 

 October or November 1610. Compare Nelli, Vita, vol. i. pp. 324-384; 

 Galilei, Opere, t. i. p. lix.; t. ii. pp. 85-200 ; t. iv. p. 53. On Harriot's 

 observations, see Eigaud, pp. 32 and 38. The Jesuit Scheiner, who was 

 summoned from Gratz to Rome, has been accused of striving to revenge 

 himself on Galileo, on account of the literary contest regarding the dis- 

 covery of the solar spots, by getting it whispered to Pope Urban VIII., 

 through another Jesuit, Grassi, that he (the Pope), in the Dialoghi delle 

 Scienze Nuove, was represented as the foolish and ignorant Simplicio 

 (Nelli, vol. ii. p. 515). 



