The Planet Saturn. 57 



considered, too, that its apparent ellipticity was not the same 

 with that of the bright rings. Mitchell also, with the 12-in. 

 achrom. at Cincinnati, noticed the disproportionate breadth 

 at the major axis; and I thought it evident with 5| in. in 

 June, 1865. 



The very curious comparative indistinctness of the B. edge 

 of ring B, observed by Schumacher and Dawes (Intellectual 

 Observer, ix., 371), struck Mr. Barrow, the companion of the 

 latter, 1855, Dec. 19, as an indication of an inclination in the 

 plane of C. — 1857, Jan. and Feb. Morton, observing with 

 Lord Wrottesley's achromatic of 7f inches, found the division 

 of B and C never well marked, from the apparent overlapping 

 of the latter, the opposite or inner edge of which was sharply 

 seen. But still more curious are the observations of the 

 eminent optician Wray and 2 II., in 1861-2, when the edge 

 of the ring was presented to us. The former, using a 7-inch 

 object-glass, distinctly saw, Dec. 23, 26, Jan. 4, 5, 11, 18, 

 a faint, nebulous, bluish- white light, very different from the 

 planet in colour, attending each side of the narrow ring-line 

 for about ± of its length right and left of the ball. The latter, 

 May 15, perceived luminous appendages like clouds of less 

 intense light, lying on the S. side of the line, which was much 

 sharper denned N. — 19, they extended 06 p, 03 /, of the 

 diameter of the ball ; their colour very unlike that of the ring, 

 being " not yellow, but more of a livid colour, brown and blue." 

 20, extent 0'65 p, 0-5/.— 21, Q-Q p, 0.4/, on which side light 

 much more feeble ; breadth increasing towards limbs like sharp 

 wedges. — 22, 0"6 p, 0*5/, — June 3, very bad image, yet appen- 

 dages still distinctly visible. Winnecke concurred in these 

 observations. Nothing of the kind, however, was noticed 

 at Greenwich, May 17, 19, 20, June 3. During £ II/s obser- 

 vations the sun was nearly in the plane of the ring ; more 

 elevated during Wray's, when the earth, on the contrary, was 

 much lower. 



Our readers may have remarked that nothing has been 

 said as to the period of the rotation of the ring, which, as is 

 well known, was deduced by ljt, in 1789, from the luminous 

 points of which such repeated mention has been made. He 

 fixed it at lOh. 32m. 15 - 4s., and the dissentients from so high 

 an authority have been very few. Schroter, indeed, from the 

 unmoved position of certain protuberances ; Schumacher, from 

 the unvaried difference in sharpness of the inner edges of B ; 

 and Schwabe, from the unchanged direction of the wedge-like 

 form of the lateral view, have not hesitated to express a doubt 

 even as to the fact of rotation ; but the generality of astro- 

 nomers have acquiesced in IjPs determination both of the fact 

 and the period : and it would seem to involve no small degree 



