98 SCENERY OF THE HEAVENS. 



elements compared with that we enjoy ; but it is computed, that even the ninetieth part of 

 the solar light exceeds the illuminating power of three thousand of our moons at the full, 

 and would itself be amply sufficient for the purposes of life. If arrested in his orbital 

 course, and abandoned to the force of the solar attraction, the planet would drop to the 

 sun in about five years and two months. The form of the body of Saturn is peculiar. 

 Though not so swift upon his axis as Jupiter, his two diameters exhibit a greater differ- 

 ence, the polar being 6700 miles shorter than the equatorial, a degree of oblateness due to 

 the cork -like lightness of his material in connection with his axical speed. It has been 

 found however that his diameter is not the greatest at the equator, but at some distance 

 from it, and that his north polar region is much more flattened than the south, a case of 

 difference from that of the other planetary spheroids which may perhaps be referable to 

 the anomalous local attraction to which he is subject. 



Men had -long been upon terms of acquaintance and familiarity with Saturn without 

 suspecting the grandeur of his construction, or the remarkable apparatus with which he is 

 furnished. The shepherd astronomers of Chaldea the star-gazers of Egypt, Greece, and 

 Rome the astrologers of the middle ages Copernicus and Tycho Brahe saw the 

 planet only as a dull nebulous star slowly moving through the heavens. It was not until 

 the earth had performed its annual circuit round the sun many thousand times, that the 

 stately form and numerous attendants of the remote wanderer hitherto deemed obscure 

 and dreary were revealed. At length, in the year 1610, Galileo sent to Keppler the 

 enormous word, 



Smaiomrmilmepoetalevinibvnenvgttaviras 



introduced in a former page, which veiled the Latin sentence to uninitiated eyes, and 

 announced the most distant planet to be threefold. This was a glimpse caught of the 

 luminous appendage of Saturn, which Huygens, with a more perfect instrument, found 

 to be a ring, at the same time discovering one of the satellites. The planet is now more 

 fully known to us ; it occupies an illustrious place in the system, having a train of seven 

 moons, with two concentric rings encompassing its body a peculiarity of structure 

 without another example in the universe, as far as we are acquainted with the subject. 



It is probable that this representation will prove to be a defective view of the 

 wonderful architecture of Saturn. Perhaps, as mightier instrumental power is brought 

 to bear upon his rings, they will be resolved into a greater number, as the one has already 

 been into two. Indications appear of the outer ring being multiple, the determination of 

 which may be reserved for the telescope of Lord Rosse. The. singular fact has been 

 recently ascertained, that the ball of the planet is not in the centre of the annulus, 



