POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
THE PLANET JUPITER IN OCTOBER AND 
NOVEMBER, 1880. 
By W. F. DENNING, F.R.A.S. 
[Plate I.] 
F ROM remote ages, long before the period when the Chal- 
daean shepherds began something like a systematic survey 
of the heavens, the brightness and conspicuous aspect of the 
Jovian planet has continued to attract the attention and admira- 
tion of mankind. Whilst the Chaldaeans introduced their 
nomenclature of the constellations, and placed a variety of 
figures and forms in the sky to inaptly represent the curious 
groupings of the stars, this planet must have been the brilliant 
spectator of the work. Belonging, as he did, to the class of 
‘ wandering stars/ it was impossible to limit him to any definite 
region of the sky, and to give him an enduring place amongst 
the variety of imaginative titles which were then affixed to the 
stars. Shining with surpassing lustre, and with a unique 
steadiness in remarkable contrast to the scintillations of the 
stellar orbs, we need not wonder that many inquiring glances 
were directed to him, and many speculations hazarded as to his 
physical aspect, and the special purpose he was designed to fulfil 
in the scheme of creation. At that day men were all uncon- 
scious of the marvellous system which, in after times, the tele- 
scope revealed. They could have little conception of the 
wonders which delighted the eye of Galileo in January 1610, 
when he first beheld the Medicean stars, as he called the four 
satellites, and watched their revolutions as they upheld the 
Copernican system of the Universe, and unfolded a host of new 
facts to his gratified understanding. 
Since Galileo’s time nearly three centuries have rolled away. 
Astronomical science has marched onwards with a rapid pace, 
ever accumulating fresh knowledge and perfecting its appliances 
of research. The puny, incompetent telescopes of former times 
have been supplanted by the giant instruments of Ilerschel, 
Rosse, Lassell, and others, which have been employed to search 
NEW SERIES, VOL. V. NO. XVII. B 
