, 1655, solved the problem of the triform appearance
of Saturn. He saw them as handles on the two sides. In a year they
had disappeared, and the planet was as round as it seemed to Galileo
in 1612. He did not, however, despair; and in October, [Page 170]
1656, he was rewarded by seeing them appear again. He wrote of
Saturn, "It is girdled by a thin plain ring, nowhere touching,
inclined to the ecliptic."

Since that time discoveries have succeeded one another rapidly.
"We have seen by degrees a ring evolved out of a triform planet,
and the great division of the ring and the irregularities on it
brought to light. Enceladus, and coy Mimas, faintest of twinklers,
are caught by Herschel's giant mirrors. And he, too, first of men,
realizes the wonderful tenuity of the ring, along which he saw
those satellites travelling like pearls strung on a silver thread.
Then Bond comes on the field, and furnishes evidence to show that
we must multiply the number of separate rings we know not how many
fold. And here we reach the golden age of Saturnian discovery,
when Bond, with the giant refractor of Cambridge, and Dawes, with
his 6-1/3-inch Munich glass, first beheld that wonderful dark
semi-transparent ring, which still remains one of the wonders of
our system. But the end is not yet: on the southern surface of
the ring, ere summer fades into autumn, Otto Struve in turn comes
upon the field, detects, as Dawes had previously done, a division
even in the dark ring, and measures it, while it is invisible to
Lassell's mirror--a proof, if one were needed, of the enormous
superiority possessed by refractors in such inquiries. Then we
approach 1861, when the ring plane again passes through the earth,
and Struve and Wray observe curious nebulous appearances."[*]

[Footnote *: Lockyer.]

Our opportunities for seeing Saturn vary greatly. As the earth at
one part of its orbit presents its south pole [Page 171] to the sun,
then its equator, then the north pole, so Saturn; and we, in the
direction of the sun, see the south side of the rings inclined at an
angle of 27 deg.; next the edge of the rings, like a fine thread of
light; then the north side at a similar inclination. On February
7th, 1878, Saturn was between Aquarius and Pisces, with the edge of
the ring to the sun. In 1885, the planet being in Taurus, the south
side of the rings will be seen at the greatest advantage. From 1881
till 1885 all circumstances will combine to give most favo