a fine pink, salmon, or even light green, are occasionally to
be seen about the equatorial zone, and the borders of the belts, while
near the poles the surface is shadowed with bluish gray, imperceptibly
deepening from the lighter hues of the equator.

All this variety of tone and color makes of a telescopic view of Jupiter
a picture that will not quickly fade from the memory; while if an
instrument of considerable power is used, so that the wonderful details
of the belts, with their scalloped edges, their diagonal filaments,
their many divisions, and their curious light and dark spots, are made
plain, the observer is deeply impressed with the strangeness of the
spectacle, and the more so as he reflects upon the enormous real
magnitude of that which is spread before his eye. The whole earth
flattened out would be but a small blotch on that gigantic disk!

Then, the visible rotation of the great Jovian globe, whose effects
become evident to a practised eye after but a few minutes' watching,
heightens the impression. And the presence of the four satellites, whose
motions in their orbits are also evident, through the change in their
positions, during the course of a single not prolonged observation,
adds its influence to the effectiveness of the scene. Indeed, color and
motion are so conspicuous in the immense spectacle presented by Jupiter
that they impart to it a powerful suggestion of life, which the mind
does not readily divest itself of when compelled to face the evidence
that Jupiter is as widely different from the earth, and as diametrically
opposed to lifelike conditions, as we comprehend them, as a planet
possibly could be.

The great belts lie in latitudes about corresponding to those in which
the trade-winds blow upon the earth, and it has often been suggested
that their existence indicates a similarity between the atmospheric
circulation of Jupiter and that of the world in which we live. No doubt
there are times when the earth, seen with a telescope from a distant
planet, would present a belted appearance somewhat resembling that of
Jupiter, but there would almost certainly be no similar display of
colors in the clouds, and the latter would exhibit no such persistence
in general form and position as characterizes those of Jupiter. Our
clouds are formed by the action of the sun, producing evaporation of
water; on Jupiter, whose mean distance from the sun is more than five
times as great as ours, the intensity