The markings of the planet are delicate, difficult of detection, and are not like those stark zebra stripes that are so often represented.

The distance between the planet and the second ring seems to be diminished one-half since 1657, and this ring has doubled its breadth in the same time.  Some of this difference may be owing to our greater telescopic power, enabling us to see the ring closer to the planet; but in all probability the ring is closing in upon the central body, and will touch it by A.D. 2150.  Thus the whole ring must ultimately fall upon the planet, instead of making a satellite.

We are anxious to learn the nature of such a ring. [Page 172] Laplace mathematically demonstrated that it cannot be uniform and solid, and survive.  Professor Peirce showed it could not be fluid, and continue.  Then Professor Maxwell showed that it must be formed of clouds of satellites too small to be seen individually, and too near together for the spaces to be discerned, unless, perhaps, we may except the inner dark ring, where they are not near enough to make it positively luminous.  Indeed, there is some evidence that the meteoroids are far enough apart to make the ring partially transparent.

We look forward to the opportunities for observation in 1882 with the brightest hope that these difficult questions will be solved.

Satellites of Saturn.

The first discovered satellite of Saturn seen by Huyghens was in 1655, and the last by the Bonds, father and son, of Cambridge, in 1848.  These are eight in number, and are named: 

Distant from Saturn’s centre. 
I. Mimas              119,725 miles. 
II.  Enceladus          153,630   "
III.  Tethys             190,225   "
IV.  Dione              243,670   "
V. Rhea               340,320   "
VI.  Titan              788,915   "
VII.  Hyperion           954,160   "
VIII.  Japetus          2,292,790   "

Titan can be seen by almost any telescope; I., II., and III., only by the most powerful instrument.  All except Japetus revolve nearly in the plane of the ring.  Like the moons of Jupiter, they present remarkable and unaccountable variations of brilliancy.  An inspection [Page 173] of the table reveals either an expectation that another moon will be discovered between V. and VI., and about three more between VII. and VIII., or that these gaps may be filled with groups of invisible asteroids, as the gap between Mars and Jupiter.  This will become more evident by drawing Saturn, the rings, and orbits of the moons all as circles, on a scale of 10,000 miles to the inch.  Saturn will be in the centre, 70,000 miles in diameter; then a gap, decreasing twenty-nine miles a year to the first ring, of, say, 10,000 miles; a dark ring 9000 miles wide; next the brightest ring 18,300 miles wide; then a gap of 1750 miles; then the outer ring 10,000 miles wide; then the orbits of the satellites in order.

If the scenery of Jupiter is magnificent, that of Saturn must be sublime.  If one could exist there, he might wander from the illuminated side of the rings, under their magnificent arches, to the darkened side, see the swift whirling moons; one of them presenting ten times the disk of the earth’s moon, and so very near as to enable him to watch the advancing line of light that marks the lunar morning journeying round that orb.