nations. This great planet is surrounded certainly by two, probably by three, immense rings, which are formed of solid matter, in all respects like that constituting the central body. These wonderful appendages are nowhere else to be found, throughout the entire solar system, at least with certainty. Their existence has elsewhere been suspected, but around Saturn they are seen with a perfection and distinctness which defies all scepticism as to their actual existence. The diameter of the outer ring is no less than 176,000 miles. Its breadth is 21,000 miles, while its thickness does not exceed 100 miles. The inner ring is separated from the outer one by a space of about 1,800 miles, its breadth 34,000 miles, its inner edge being about 20,000 miles from the surface of the planet. Its thickness is the same as that of the outer ring. These extraordinary objects are rotating in the same direction as the planet, and with a velocity so great, that objects on the exterior edge of the outer ring are carried through space with the amazing velocity of nearly 50,000 miles an hour, or nearly fifty times more swiftly than the objects on the earth's equator.

What power of adjustment can secure the stability of these stupendous rings? No solid bond fastens them to the planet; isolated in space, they hold their places, and, revolving with incredible velocity around an imaginary axis, they accompany their planet in its mighty orbit round the sun. Such is the exceeding delicacy with which this system is adjusted, that the slightest external cause once deranging the equilibrium, no readjustment would be effected. The rings would be thrown on the body of the planet, and the system would be destroyed.

To understand the extraordinary character of this system, we must explain a little more fully the three different kinds of equilibrium. The first is called an equilibrium of instability, and is exemplified in the effort to balance a rod on the tip of the finger. The slightest deviation from the exact vertical, increases itself constantly, until the equilibrium is destroyed. In case the same rod be balanced on its centre on the finger, it presents an example of an equilibrium of indifference; that is, if it be swayed slightly to the one side or the other, there is no tendency to restore itself, or to increase its deviation. It remains indifferent to any change. Take the same rod, and suspend it like a pendulum. Now cause it to deviate from the vertical to the right or left, and it returns of itself to the condition of

equilibrium. This is an equilibrium of stability. We have already seen that this is the kind of equilibrium which exists in the planetary system. There are constant deviations, but a perpetual effort is making to restore the object to its primitive condition.

Now, in case the rings of Saturn are homogeneous, equally thick, and exactly concentric with the planet, their equilibrium is one of instability. The smallest derangement would find no restorative power, and would even perpetuate and increase itself, until the system were destroyed. For a long time it was believed that the rings were equally thick, and concentric with the planet; but when it was discovered that such features would produce an equilibrium of instability, and that there existed no guarantee for the permanency of this exquisite system, an analytic examination was made, which led to this singular result, namely, To change the equilibrium of instability into one of stability, all that is necessary is to make the ring thicker or denser in some parts than in others, and to cause its centre of position to be without the centre of the planet, and to perform around that centre a revolution in a minute orbit. Finding these conditions analytically, it now became a matter of deep interest to ascertain whether these conditions actually existed in nature. The occasional disappearance of the ring, in consequence of its edge being presented to the eye of the observer, gave an excellent opportunity of determining whether it was of uniform thickness. On these rare occasions, in the most powerful telescopes, the ring remains visible edgewise, and looks like a slender fibre of silver light drawn across the diameter of the planet. In the gradual wasting away of the two extremities of the ring, it has been remarked, that the one remains visible longer than the other. As the ring is swiftly revolving, neither extremity can, in any sense, be regarded as fixed, and hence sometimes the one, sometimes the other, fades first from the sight. An exactly uniform thickness in the ring would render such a phenomenon impossible, and hence we conclude, that the first condition of stability is fulfilled ;-the rings are not equally thick throughout.

The micrometer was now applied to detect an eccentricity in the central point of the ring. Recent examinations by Struve and Bessel have settled this question in the most satisfactory manner. The centre of the ring does not coincide with that of

the planet, and it is actually performing a revolution around the centre of the planet in a minute orbit, thus forming the second delicate condition of equilibrium. The analogy of the great system is unbroken in the subordinate one. For more than two hundred years have these wonderful circles of light whirled in their rapid career under the eye of man, and, freed from all external action, they are so poised, that millions of years shall in no wise affect their beautiful organisation. Their graceful figures and beautiful light shall greet the eyes of the student of the heavens, when ten thousand years shall have rolled away.

Thus do we find that God has built the heavens in wisdom, to declare his glory, and to show forth his handiwork. There are no iron tracks, with bars and bolts, to hold the planets in their orbits. Freely in space they move, ever changing, but never changed; poised and balancing; swaying and swayed; disturbing and disturbed, onward they fly, fulfilling with unerring certainty their mighty cycles. The entire system forms one grand complicated piece of celestial machinery; circle within circle, wheel within wheel, cycle within cycle; revolutions so swift, as to be completed in a few hours; movements so slow, that their mighty periods are only counted by millions of years. Are we to believe that the Divine Architect constructed this admirably adjusted system to wear out, and to fall in ruins, even before one single revolution of its complex scheme of wheels had been performed? No; I see the mighty orbits of the planets slowly rocking to and fro, their figures expanding and contracting, their axes revolving in their vast periods; but stability is there. Every change shall wear away, and after sweeping through the grand cycle of cycles, the whole system shall return to its primitive condition of perfection and beauty.

LECTURE VII.

THE DISCOVERY OF NEW PLANETS.

N the earliest ages of the world, the keen vision of the old astronomers had detected the principal members of the planetary system. Even Mercury, which habitually hovers near the sun, and whose light is almost constantly lost in the superior brilliancy of that luminary, did not escape the eagle glance of the primitive students of the stars. For many thousand years no suspicion arose in the mind, as to the existence of other planets, belonging to the great scheme, and which had remained invisible from their immense distance or their minute dimensions. Indeed the grand investigations which have recently engaged our attention, the mutation of the planetary orbits, their perpetual oscillations and final restoration, the equilibrium of the whole system, had been prosecuted and completed before the mind gave itself seriously to the contemplation of invisible worlds.

The singularly inquisitive genius of Kepler, over whom analogy seems to have ever played the tyrant, in an examination of the interplanetary spaces, finding these to increase with regularity in proceeding outward from the sun, until reaching the space between Mars and Jupiter, which was out of all proportion too great, conceived the idea that an invisible planet revolved in this

space, and thus completed the harmony of the system. The space from the orbit of Mercury to that of Venus is 31,000,000 miles; from the orbit of Venus to that of the earth is 27,000,000 miles; from the earth's orbit to that of Mars is 50,000,000 miles; but between the orbit of Mars and that of Jupiter there exists the enormous interval of 359,000,000 miles. The order is again resumed between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, and from these slender data Kepler boldly predicted that a time would come when a planet would be found intermediate between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, whose discovery would establish a regular progression in the interplanetary spaces. For nearly two hundred years this daring speculation was regarded as one of the wild dreams of a great but visionary mind.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century, when the planetary orbs had been studied with great care, and a comparatively accurate knowledge of their perturbations had been reached, certain unexplained irregularities gave rise to the suspicion that the movements of Saturn might be disturbed by the action of an unknown planet revolving in a vast orbit, remote from, and far beyond that of Saturn. These speculations led to no serious results, and it was only by a fortunate accident that, on the 13th of March, 1781, Sir William Herschel noticed a small star of remarkable appearance, which happened to fall in the field of his telescope. applying a greater magnifying power, the strange star showed

On

Dr. Herschel.

unequivocal symptoms of increased dimensions. Its position among the neighbouring stars was noticed with care, and by an examination on the following evening, the stranger was found to have sensibly changed position. A few nights sufficed to establish the fact that the newly discovered body was actually a wandering star; and not for a moment dreaming of the discovery of a new planet, Herschel announced to the world