62 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 
men.  Galileo’s best instrument magnified only about 33 times, 
and to Huygens belongs the credit of being the first to im- 
prove it, for he set to work with his own hands to grind, polish 
and mount his telescope, and produced lenses more correct and 
of longer focal distance than any that had been previously ac- 
complished. 
He first constructed a telescope 12 feet long, then one 23 
feet long, magnifying 95 times, and afterwards made one 123 
feet long, magnifying about 220 times. By means of his im- 
proved telescopes Huygens discovered the true form of the 
ring about Saturn, which he found to be completely surround- 
ing the planet and entirely detached from it, thus forever set- 
ting at rest the disputes and quarrels of the scientists of those 
days concerning the mysterious form of Saturn’s appendages. 
At a later date Herschel came upon the scene with his im- 
proved telescopes and made many observations on the planet, 
and he discovered that the ring revolved around the planet in 
To hours and 30 minutes. Then later astronomers, with still 
further improved telescopes, having greater defining power, 
discovered that what appeared one ring around Saturn is really 
a series of concentric rings entirely separated and revolving at 
a tremendous speed around the planet, affording a most won- 
derful combination. 
Plate 2 represents the view of Saturn, which I have drawn 
from a small picture as seen through the Lick telescope. And 
I may here remark, in passing, that Saturn does not always 
present this view to us, of our looking upon the surface of the 
rings. I find that in the Journal of Astronomical Society -of 
Wales, our Mr. Tenkins made an observation on Saturn in 
18e5, March oth, at 5.15 a.m., with a power of 180 in a 5-inch 
Wray telescope, from which he made a drawing of the planet, 
then showine the under, side of the rings just the same as the 
Lick telescope shows it, only reversed. [Reverse the picture. | 
The one showing the top surface of the rings, and Mr. Jenkins 
the under side of the rings, as the planet appeared at that time. 
The distance of Saturn from the Sun is 906,000,000 miles, 
and its diameter is about 79,000 miles, nearly ten times the size 
