R.A.Proctor del

London: Longman & Co.

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SATURN AND ITS SYSTEM:

CONTAINING DISCUSSIONS OF

THE MOTIONS (REAL AND APPARENT) AND TELESCOPIC
APPEARANCE OF THE PLANET SATURN, ITS SATELLITES,
AND RINGS; THE NATURE OF THE RINGS; THE 'GREAT
INEQUALITY' OF SATURN AND JUPITER; AND THE
HABITABILITY OF SATURN.

TO WHICH ARE APPENDED

NOTES ON CHALDEAN ASTRONOMY, LAPLACE'S NEBULAR THEORY,
AND THE HABITABILITY OF THE MOON; A SERIES OF TABLES WITH
EXPLANATORY NOTES; AND EXPLANATIONS OF ASTRONOMICAL TERMS.

BY

RICHARD A. PROCTOR, B.A.

Late Scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, and King's College, London.

ILLUSTRATED BY FOURTEEN ENGRAVINGS IN STEEL AND COPPER.

THE HEAVENS DECLARE THE GLORY OF GOD,

THE FIRMAMENT SHOWETH HIS HANDYWORK.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN.

1865.

914

1865. aly 13.

Bowditch Grand.

Heav'n

Is as the book of God before us set,

Wherein to read His wondrous works, and learn
His seasons, hours, or days, or months, or years.

MILTON.

This I say, and would wish all men to know and lay to heart, that he who discerns nothing but Mechanism in the Universe, has in the fatallest way missed the Secret of the Universe altogether.

MICROFILMED
AT HARVARD

CARLYLE.

PREFACE.

I HAVE endeavoured in this work to give a complete account of the phenomena presented by the planet Saturn and its system. It might appear, at first sight, that a single planet, however interesting or elaborate the scheme of which it is the centre, should rather be made the subject of a chapter than of a volume, even of the moderate dimensions of the present. It will be found, however, that much that is contained in these pages, is applicable, with suitable changes in matters of detail, to all the members of the solar system.

The inquiry into the nature of the rings, in Chapter V., deals with a subject not uninteresting, I think, on its own account, but which gathers an additional interest from its bearing on the speculations of Laplace. It is not altogether impossible that in the variations perceptibly proceeding in the Saturnian ring-system a key may one day be found to the law of development under which the solar system has reached its present condition.

Certain points of resemblance between the relations of Saturn and our earth, as respects the variations of their seasons, have induced me to devote somewhat more space to the consideration of the celestial phenomena presented to the Saturnians than the nature of the subject might appear These features of resemblance--singular in

to warrant.