252 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
THE PLANET SATUKN IN JULY 1869. 
BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR, B.A., F.R.A.S., 
Author of Saturn and its System,” Half-Hours with the 
Telescope,” &c. &c. 
T here is no object in the heavens which is so well calculated 
to excite our admiration as the planet Saturn, when ob- 
served with a good telescope. The nebulae exhibit to us systems 
which are in reality incomparably more magnificent. The 
double stars, rightly understood — and especially those binary 
systems whose periods extend over many hundreds of years — 
afford stronger evidence of the grand scale on which the 
universe is created. But the evidence which Saturn affords is 
more readily appreciated. The mind must be dull, indeed, 
which does not recognise at once, in the splendid architecture 
of the Saturnian system, the fashioning power of the great 
laws which the Creator has set His universe. The beauty of 
the system, the perfect regularity of the gigantic rings, the 
delicate varieties of colour which the practised observer can 
detect both in the planet and its attendant ring-system, and the 
magnificent scale on which all these features of interest are 
exhibited, attract and impress the attention; while the singular 
problems suggested by the stability of the rings, or st’ll more 
by the slow processes of change to w^hich they appear to be 
subjected, invite the exercise of the fullest powers of the observer 
and of the mathematician. 
The return of Saturn to our skies is rendered this year more 
than usually interesting, by the fact that the rings have now 
attained their full opening ; so that it will be possible to renew, 
under favourable circumstances, that examination of their 
structure w’hich, on the last occasion of the sort, led to the 
discovery of the dark ring and other singular features. The 
planet will not indeed attain a high elevation during the 
coming months, and therefore the opportunities for the ap- 
plication of high powers will be comparatively few. But there 
can be little doubt, that the numerous able observers, who now 
nightly scan the heavens with powerful and w'ell defining tele- 
