Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 095.djvu/305

Rh that it was flattened at the poles at least as much as Jupiter, I was insensibly diverted from a more critical attention to the rest of the figure. Prepossessed with its being spheroidical, I measured the equatorial and polar diameters in the year 1789, and supposed there could be no other particularity to remark in the figure of the planet. When I perceived a certain irregularity in other parts of the body, it was generally ascribed to the interference of the ring, which prevents a complete view of its whole contour; and in this error I might still have remained, had not a late examination of the powers of my 10-feet telescope convinced me that I ought to rely with the greatest confidence upon the truth of its representations of the most minute objects I inspected.

The following observations, in which the singular figure of Saturn is fully investigated, contain many remarks on the rest of the appearances that may be seen when this beautiful planet is examined with attention; and though they are not immediately necessary to my present subject, I thought it right to retain them, as they show the degree of distinctness and precision of the action of the telescope, and the clearness of the atmosphere at the time of observation.

April 12, 1805. With a new 7-feet mirror of extraordinary distinctness, I examined the planet Satum. The ring reflects more light than the body, and with a power of 570 the colour of the body becomes yellowish, while that of the ring remains more white. This gives us an opportunity to distinguish the ring from the body, in that part where it crosses the disk, by means of the difference in the colour of the reflected light. I saw the quintuple belt, and the flattening of the body at the Rh