upon to keep accurate time.
Though the pendulum motion was first adopted by Galileo, he was unable
to arrange its mechanism so that it should keep up a continuous
movement. The oscillation of the pendulum ceased after a time, and a
fresh impulse had to be applied to set it in motion. Consequently,
Galileo's clock was of no service as a timekeeper.

Huygens overcame this difficulty by so arranging the mechanism of his
clock that the balance, instead of being horizontal, was directed
perpendicularly, and prolonged downwards to form a pendulum, the
oscillations of which regulated the downward motion of the weight. This
invention, which was highly applauded, proved to be of great service
everywhere, and was especially valuable for astronomical purposes.

Huygens next directed his attention to the construction of telescopes,
and displayed much skill in the grinding and polishing of lenses. He
made several instruments superior in power and accuracy to any that
existed previously, and with one of these made some remarkable
discoveries when observing the planet Saturn.

The telescopic appearance of Saturn is one of the most beautiful in the
heavens. The planet, surrounded by two brilliant rings, and accompanied
by eight attendant moons, surpasses all the other orbs of the firmament
as an object of interest and admiration. To the naked eye, Saturn is
visible as a star of the first magnitude, and was known to the ancients
as the most remote of the planets. Travelling in space at a distance of
nearly one thousand millions of miles from the Sun, the planet
accomplishes a revolution of its mighty orbit in twenty-nine and a half
years.

Galileo was the first astronomer who directed a telescope to Saturn. He
observed that the planet presented a triform appearance, and that on
each side of the central globe there were two objects, in close contact
with it, which caused it to assume an ovoid shape. After further
observation, Galileo perceived that the lateral bodies gradually
decreased in size, until they became invisible. At the expiration of a
certain period of time they reappeared, and were observed to go through
a certain cycle of changes. By the application of increased telescopic
power it was discovered that the appendages were not of a rounded form,
but appeared as two small crescents, having their concave surfaces
directed towards the planet and their extremities in contact with it,
resembling the manner in which the handles