Page:Gods Glory in the Heavens.djvu/222

194 whole fabric. As in a Gothic cathedral, we do not find the pervading style merely in the spire and the great western entrance, but in every niche and window, however small; so, in the architecture of the heavens, we find one general idea, though with much diversity, in every part of the solar system.

Recent research has detected a striking resemblance between the solar and Saturnian systems. The discovery of the analogy was a long time retarded by the notion, that the rings must necessarily be solid. The idea of solidity is irresistibly forced upon the mind, when you look upon the rings, as sharply defined as the horizon circle round a school globe. And if a first impression be strong, very slender arguments are sufficient to confirm it. For example. Sir John Herschel concludes that they must be solid and opaque, because they cast a shadow upon the ball of the planet, and receive one in turn. But it is quite possible that they should cast a shadow, and, yet be not solid. A cloud, for example, casts and receives a shadow, though it is not opaque. A cloud, too, may assume such a solid aspect, that you cannot distinguish it from some snow-capped mountain.

The idea of solidity so strongly took possession of the minds of astronomers, that the most strained hypotheses were resorted to in order to account for the stability of the rings. How was the ball to be kept precisely in the middle of the solid ring? For, though originally adjusted with the utmost precision,