IV
SATURN AND ITS SYSTEM
Saturn. Saturn marked to the ancients the outer boundary of the solar system. From its slow motion, they rightly conjectured it to be the farthest away of all the "wanderers," and wrongly to be sinister in intent. Our word "saturnine" expresses the feeling it inspired.
In the telescope, Saturn is undoubtedly the most immediately impressive object in the heavens. Few persons can be shown the planet for the first time without an exclamation. To see it sail into the field of view, its great ball diademed by an elliptic ring, and carrying with it a retinue of star-points set against the blue-black background of the sky, gives the most prosaic a sensation.
Saturn's self we shall leave till we come to speak of Jupiter (in the next chapter); and shall here consider the two systems of bodies dependent on it, its rings and its satellites.
The ring system.The Unique, so far as we know, is that appanage of Saturn which makes the planet so superb a