THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 65 
rapid motion of the rings is one of the principal causes its great 
Creator has arranged for sustaining and preventing them from 
collapsing and falling down upon the planet. 
Saturn is 9% times farther from the sun than we are, in 
round numbers being g06 millions of miles from the sun, and 
consequently will receive only one-nineteenth of the light of the 
sun which we receive, yet Saturn’s light is, however, equal to 
the light which would be reflected from 1,000 full moons such 
as ours. 
Saturn is provided with horizontal belts, similar in form 
te those of Jupiter, but they cover a larger space on the planet 
than do those of Jupiter, and do not seem to shift their posi- 
tions as do those of Jupiter. 
On our getting still nearer to the planet our senses became 
more than overpowered with its increasing magnificence, 
brightness and grandeur. Imagine the lovely king of planets, 
swiftly rotating, its grand old gigantic rings whirling so swift- 
ly round it, and occupying one whole quarter of the sky, and 
its eight moons revolving around the planet and rings, some 
of the moons 60 times larger in apparent size to our own moon, 
imagine all these moons appearing in one part of the heavens, 
sometimes in another, changing their phases and apparent 
magnitude and distance from each other, every hour, appearing 
sometimes like a large crescent, sometimes like a small one, 
sometimes with a full enlightened face, one moon rising, an- 
other setting, another in the zenith, all casting different and 
opposite shadows. Let us imagine these and many other di- 
versified phenomena presenting themselves with increasing 
variety in the canopy of heaven, and we shall have some faint 
idea of the grandeur and beauty of the Saturnian sky. 
No artist, however great, or talented, could draw or paint 
the true grandeur and magnificence of Saturn and its rings and 
moons as they appeared to us in all their beauty of light, form, 
motion and color. 
If the planet is inhabited those who live on the side of the 
rings will see one-half of the hemisphere of Saturn, which will 
fill, perhaps, the one-fifth or one-sixth part of their celestial 
