276 Miscellaneous I ntelligence. 
i 
ing come to a satisfactory conclusion about the sateslines of Ju- 
lat h 
Havi 
piter, | turned next to Saturn. This planet rose so n the night 
that [ had not seen it while watching Jupiter, and I was Signi to know 
whether any traces of a ring could be detected by the naked eye. To 
my surprise and delight, the moment | fixed my eye steadily upon It, 
the elongation was very apparent, not like the satellites of Jupiter, at 
first suspected, guessed at, and then clearly discernible, but such a view 
Ss was most Meal a made me wonder that I had never made 
the discovery before. [ can only account for it from the fact that, 
though I have looked at the planet here with the telescope many times, 
1 have never scrutinized it carefully with the naked eye. Several of 
; my associates, whose attention | have since called to the planet, at once 
told me in which direction the longer axis of the ring lay, and that too 
= any previous knowledge of its position, or acquaintance with 
other’s opinion. ‘This is very satisfactory to me, as independent 
ps a testimony. 
I have somewhere seen it stated, that in ancient works on astronomy, 
a tgs long before the discovery of the jaa Saturn is represeaiae 
of an oblong shape, and that ithas puzzled astronomers much fo 
Afier examining anton I turned to Venus. The most I could de- 
termine with my naked eye was, that it shot out rays unequally, and 
appeared not to be raat but, on taking a dark glass, of just the 
right opacity, I saw the planet as a very minute, but beautifully defined, 
crescent. ‘To. guard against deception, I turned the glass in different 
ways, and used different glasses, and always with the same pleasing 
result. It may be that Venus can be seen thus in England, and else- 
where, but I have never heard of the experiment being tr ied. 
Let me say here, that I find the naked eye superior for these pur- 
poses to a telescope formed of spectacle glasses, of six or eight magni 
fying power, This is not, perhaps, very wonderful, considering that 
in direct vision both eyes are used, without the straining of any one 0 
the muscles around them, and without spherical or chromatic aberration, 
or = interposition of a dense medium 
am an entire stranger, and at the same time am desirous of hav- 
Shien statements make their full i impression on your mind, it is proper 
for me to say that I was shah ae several years a pupil of Professor 
his special friendship ; “iets at I bs ; associated for some time in ob- 
servations with young Mason, whose early death you have spoken of as 
a loss to the astronomical world. And though, no doubt, very many 
persons have more accurate habits of observation than myself, a pircu 
of fifteen years has done much to train my eye for researches like t 
: 36,) in spea® 
ing of he _extinetion of Tight . ee soci Yo i : “ The leew 
th through a pes alle atmosphere © 
light in g from the zen 
