l8 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 



times as tall and broad in proportion. They would then have 

 weight enough to live and move and have their being, but con- 

 sider the results. Such size would bring proportionate strength 

 like Milton's angels, they could tear up hills from their bases 

 and hurl them at their foes and like Titans of old they could 

 pile mountain on mountain. One of these giants could run 

 around his world in a few minutes. The contrary effects would 

 exist in Jupiter; his mass is equal to 1,400 earths; the force of 

 gravitation there would crush us to death, our feet would be so 

 firmly attracted we could not lift them. Jupiter would there- 

 fore need to be inhabited by a race of pigmies. Strange in- 

 deed it is that the larger the world the smaller its inhabitants 

 must be, that we inhabitants of the earth being men those of 

 Jupiter must be dwarfs and those of the asteroids giants. 



Jupiter, the gigantic, is a most interesting object in our 

 southern sky. His four moons have been known since Galileo's 

 day, and in 1892 a fifth moon was discovered. Through a tele- 

 scope Jupiter with his moons forms a beautiful object, a solar 

 system in miniature. Galileo had difficulty with his contem- 

 poraries to persuade them of their existence, many absolutely 

 refused to look through any such diabolical engine as a telescope 

 and so of course they could not be convinced. One of these 

 sceptics, Libri of Pisa, died during the heat of the controversy, 

 and we find Galileo, in a letter to a friend, generously hoping 

 that the way to heaven lay past the planet Jupiter and that 

 Libri might be convinced at last. Saturn, the gloomy Saturn, 

 pursues an immense orbit at a distance of 881,000,000 miles 

 from the sun, turning on its axis in 10^ hours, and has a period 

 round the sun of 291^ of our years. Unless it is a world in a 

 vaporous condition, in merely a formative process, and if in- 

 habited, its inhabitants must experience some strange conditions. 

 The sun is to them no larger than a star, with a day of loj^ 

 hours ; the promissory note of a Saturnian inhabitant given 

 say at 30 days will fall due very much sooner than in our com- 

 mercial world — that circumstance itself must help to fix their 

 character as gloomy or Saturnine. They have seven years 

 continuous spring, seven years continuous summer, autumn 



