THE RINGED PLANET. 53 



supposition, in his ring-system and family of satellites. It is very 

 well to grow rapturous, as many besides Brewster and Chalmers 

 have done, over the beauty of the Saturnian skies, illuminated by so 

 many satellites and by the glorious rings; and it is very proper, 

 no doubt, for those who so view Saturn's system, to dwell admiringly 

 on the beneficence with which all this abundance of reflected light 

 has been provided, to make up to the Saturnians for the small amount 

 of light and heat which they receive from the sun. But, unfortu- 

 nately for this way of viewing the matter, the satellites and rings 

 do not by any means subserve the purposes thus ascribed to them. 

 Even if all the satellites could be full together, they would not sup- 

 ply a sixteenth part of the light which we receive from our full 

 moon ; and they cannot even appear very beautiful when we consider 

 that the apparent brightness of their surface can be but about one- 

 ninetieth of the brightness of our moon's. As for the rings, so far 

 from appearing to be contrived specially for the advantage of Satur- 

 nian beings, these rings, if Saturn were inhabited, would be the most 

 mischievous and inconvenient appendages possible. They would give 

 light during the summer nights, indeed, when light was little wanted, 

 though even this service would be counteracted by the circumstance 

 that at midnight the enormous shadow of the planet would hide the 

 greater part of the rings. But it is in winter that the rings would 

 act most inconveniently; for then, just at the season when the Satur- 

 nians would most require an additional supply of light and heat, 

 the rings would cut off for extensive regions on Saturn the whole of 

 the solar light and heat which would otherwise be received. Dr. 

 Lardner was quite mistaken in supposing (after a cursory examination 

 of the mathematical relations involved) that the eclipses so produced 

 would be but partial. His object was excellent, since he sought to 

 show that " the infinite skill of the Great Architect of the universe has 

 not permitted that the stupendous annular appendage, the uses of 

 which still remain undiscovered, should be the cause of such darkness 

 and desolation to the inhabitants of the planet, and such an aggrava- 

 tion of the rigors of their fifteen years' winter," as would result from 

 eclipses lasting many months or even years in succession. But we 

 must not endeavor to strengthen faith in the wisdom of the Almighty 

 by means of false mathematics. So soon as the subject is rigorously 

 treated, we find that Sir John Herschel was quite right in his original 

 statements on this subject. The present writer published, in 1865, a 

 tabular statement of the length of time during which (according to 

 rigid mathematical calculations) the eclipses produced by the rings 

 last in different Saturnian latitudes. The following quotation from 

 the work in which this table appeared will serve to show that the 

 partial daily eclipses conceived by Lardner are very far from the 

 truth, or rather are only a part, and a very small part, of the truth : 

 "In latitude 40° (north or south), the eclipses begin when nearly three 



