THE PLANET SATURN.

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We are almost tempted to wonder whether it can he that, fromsome cause related to that which originated the rings of theSaturnian system, several satellites were also formed in a some-what regular order of distance near to the outer boundary ofthe rings, while the same cause permitted others further awayto be differently arranged. In any case, we cannot but bestruck with the analogy of the position occupied in the Saturniansystem by the largest satellite, Titan, and that of the planet Jupiter in the Solar System . As four planets, or perhaps five,or even more (if we admit the existence of one, or several, intra-mercurial planets), are found around the Sun, succeeded by agap, in which only the minute forms of the Minor Planets areseen, after which the huge globe of Jupiter appears, with otherlarge planets located beyond its orbit at more irregular distances,—so there are five satellites round Saturn , and then a gap,after which we come to Titan, which may well be termed huge,and then again to one so much smaller that we wonder whetherit has any companions in the wide region between Titan andIapetus. Indeed, we are almost inclined to ask :—May therenot, perhaps, be a multitude of little moons scattered throughthis vast and apparently vacant space, as there is of MinorPlanets between Mars and Jupiter ?

We see, in each case, a great central aggregation of matterin the Sun or Saturn , then several smaller aggregations, and,at a certain distance, one much smaller than the central one,but much larger than all the others. We also find that theMinor Planets and Hyperion, the most minute of all, are re-spectively found next to the largest, Jupiter and Titan. Can itbe that there is some law, or some effective process, of whicliwe are at present ignorant, connected with the condensationof a nebula into a central body with others revolving round it,whether it be into a Sun and its planets, or into a planet andits moons, which would explain all this ?

Thin as the ring-system is, it would when seen edgewisefrom places upon, or very near to, the planet’s equator, almostalways conceal the seven innermost satellites, since they re-volve in, or very nearly in, its plane. From other parts ofSaturn they would never be hidden by the rings. But just as