Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 095.djvu/304



is not perhaps another object in the heavens that presents us with such a variety of extraordinary phenomena as the planet Saturn: a magnificent globe, encompassed by a stupendous double ring: attended by seven satellites: ornamented with equatorial belts: compressed at the poles: turning upon its axis: mutually eclipsing its ring and satellites, and eclipsed by them: the most distant of the rings also turning upon its axis, and the same taking place with the farthest of the satellites: all the parts of the system of Saturn occasionally reflecting light to each other: the rings and moons illuminating the nights of the Saturnian: the globe and satellites enlightening the dark parts of the rings: and the planet, and rings throwing back the sun's beams upon the moons, when they are deprived of them at the time of their conjunctions.

It must be confessed that a detail of circumstances like these, appears to leave hardly any room for addition, and yet the following observations will prove that there is a singularity left, which distinguishes the figure of Saturn from that of all the other planets.

It has already been mentioned on a former occasion, that so far back as the year 1776 I perceived that the body of Saturn was not exactly round; and when I found in the year 1781