Pepper. ] 266 (Oct, 19, 
to speak, the operation of law. Therefore we may assume that when 
many more asteroids have been discovered, the law exhibited in the figure 
will appear even more dlistinctly.’’* 
One hundred and twenty minor planets have heen added to the list since 
this passage was written, and, as was then predicted, the chasms in the 
zone have been rendered the more obvious. 
In three portions of the ring the clustering tendency is distinctly evi- 
dent. These are from 2.35 to 2.46, from 2.55 to 2.80, and from 8.05 to 
2.22; containing forty-three, ninety-six, and forty asteroids, respectively. 
We have thus an obvious resemblance to the rings of Saturn ; the partial 
breaks or chasms in the zone corresponding to the well-known intervals 
in the system of secondary rings. 
Tue Rinas or SATURN, 
In the writer’s Meteoric Astronomy, published in 1867, the same princi- 
ple employed to explain the chasms in the ring of minor planets was 
shown also to account for Cassini’s division in Saturn’s ring; and, in a 
paper read before the American Philosophical Society, on the 6th of Oc- 
tober, 1871, the division discovered by Encke was explained in like man- 
ner. The details of these calculations need not here be repeated, espe- 
cially as Dr. Meyer has quite recently discussed the whole subject, not 
only confirming the conclusions of the present writer, but indicating also 
other parts of the ring where the satellites unite in exercising special dis- 
turbing influences, So exhaustive is Dr. Meyer’s discussion that ‘the 
correspondence between calculation and observation, as to the division of 
Saturn’s rings, would now seem to be complete.’’ 
OBITUARY OF JOHN FORSYTH MEIGS, M.D. 
By Wriu1AM Perper, M.D., LL.D. 
(Read before the American Philosophical Society, Oct. 19, 1883.) 
There are many men who, in their quiet, unobtrusive 
course, are of incalculable value to the community, 
and yet who leave» but scant material for the biogra- 
pher. The record of their life-work is to be sought in 
the cherished recollections of thousands who owe what 
* Intellectual Observer, vol. iv, p. 22. 
