56 The Planet Saturn. 



careful comparison, ascertain for himself, what is pretty cer- 

 tainly known, and what is still ambiguous, in this wonderful 

 subject. 



To explain the variety of appearances, it would seem 

 necessary to assume that Ball's is not the only actual division 

 in the system, but that the minuter dark lines which have 

 been often noticed, indicate its separation into many narrow 

 concentric annuli. This is in every respect probable, and it is 

 not impossible that the difference so frequently recorded in 

 the visibility of these divisions on opposite sides of the globe, 

 may be due to some of the perturbing influences to which we 

 have alluded, and which may really, in the inscrutable arrange- 

 ments of an all-wise Creator, be the source of preservation 

 instead of ruin. Such at least was the opinion of Pierce, who 

 considered that, without the compensation introduced by the 

 influence and position of the satellites, not even the irregu- 

 larities of the ring, to which Laplace had referred its equi- 

 librium, would suffice to guarantee it from collapse and 

 destruction. 



The variation of inclination among the bright portions is 

 obviously confined, as we must have remarked, within narrow 

 limits, and disturbs the symmetry but in a small degree. But 

 it may be questioned whether this may not be more the case 

 with regard to the dark ring 0, as well as whether it may not 

 be of considerably greater thickness than its neighbours. 

 % II. thinks both of these probable, from the visibility of what 

 Maraldi called the equatorial belt during the disappearance of 

 the ring in 1715. This, however, does not seem conclusive, 

 unless it can be shown that he was not then looking upon the 

 unenlightened side of the bright rings. But at the first dis- 

 covery of C in 1850, Dawes remarked that it was always more 

 plainly seen behind than in front of the ball, and that its 

 projection upon the ball was then considerably too narrow to 

 accord with that at the major axis ; and more conspicuously so 

 at that time, than at the end of 1852. These appearances, he 

 says, might be satisfied by the supposition of a wedge-like form 

 in 0, the thick edge outwards, and a similar but reversed form 

 of B : he preferred, however, the hypothesis of De la Rue of a 

 different inclination for 0, which would thus be tilted up, as 

 it were, from behind towards the eye. De la Rue, in fact, in 

 his first beautiful engraving, Nov. 1852, represents C as 

 encroaching on the outline of B behind the ball ; and in his 

 second continues to show it wider there than in front :* he 



* Lassell, on the contrary, at Malta, with 21 inches, found, 1S52, Dec. 15, C 

 so broad, and B so narrow, in front of the ball, that he thought the darkest part 

 of the latter must have been merged in the appearance of the former. 



