of the outer ring, or 177,500 miles. As to the thickness of the ring, this is proved by various circumstances to be very inconsiderable, perhaps not amounting to more that from one to two hundred miles. Such, indeed, is its thinness, that when the mi

position between the equator and the poles, about the parallel of forty-five degrees. The same investigator first remarked the superior brilliancy of the polar regions. This is least obvious after they have been long exposed to the influence of the solar rays; and most distinct when just emerg-nutest of the satellites, which can only be ing from the long night of their polar reached by telescopes of extraordinary winter. Whether the appearance arises power, appears on the edge, it projects on from the presence of snow, at its minimum the opposite sides, above and below. at the former period, and its maximum Herschel once saw his two little moons in at the latter; or whether from fluctuating this position, as beads moving along a line vapors suspended above the surface, the of light, "like pearls strung on a silver existence of an atmosphere is necessarily thread." implied. In August, 1789, after having just completed his forty-feet reflector, Herschel discovered a fresh satellite; and another in the following month, by means of the same powerful instrument, making the total number then known seven.

The remarkable appendages of the planet did not escape a rigid scrutiny; and Herschel may be said to have been the first to place beyond doubt the duality of the ring. He also ascertained the fact of the rotation of the rings, which had been inferred from the laws of mechanics, as necessary in order to generate a centrifugal force sufficient to balance the attraction of the planet, and prevent precipitation upon its surface. He inferred from his observations that an atmosphere enveloped them; that superficial irregularities mark their construction; and he was the first who discerned the shadow cast on the planet, when the edge, being turned toward the earth, was invisible. It was also remarked by this distinguished man that the light of the rings is brighter than that of the planet; and that the brightness of the interior one gradually diminishes inward, till at the inner edge it is scarcely greater than that of the shaded belts of the orb. Seen under a high magnifying power, Saturn exhibits no leaden hue, but a light of a yellowish tinge, while that of the rings is white. The interior ring is brighter than the exterior. The difference between them in this respect has been illustrated by that which subsists between unwrought and polished silver.

In round numbers, the inner ring is 20,000 miles from the surface of the planet; its own breadth, similarly given, is 17,000; the interval of separation is 1800; and the breadth of the outer ring is 10,500 miles. If we double these numbers, and add the diameter of the planet, 79,000 miles, the result is the exterior diameter

We must rapidly sum up the remainder of our story. Saturn, it seems, has not his house seated at the centre of his courtyard, but a little to the west of it; and well for him and his appurtenances it is that this arrangement has been made. The eccentricity, after being surmised, was proved by Struve in 1826. Instead of the centre of gravity of the rings being coincident with that of the planet, the former describes a very minute orbit around the latter. Insignificant as this fact may appear, it is essential to the conservation of the system; for had the two centres exactly coincided, it can be shown that any external force, such as the attraction of a satellite, would subvert the equilibrium of the rings, and precipitate them upon the orb. How true it is that the same Lord who by wisdom hath founded the earth, by understanding hath established the heavens! It has since been ascertained that the outer ring is in itself multiple; and that there is either a distinct semi-transparent appendage nearer the planet than the old inner ring, or a continuation of the latter, very much inferior to it in brightness. In the sky of Saturn, the rings must appear as vast and inconceivably splendid luminous arches, stretching across the heavens from horizon to horizon, to those regions on which their enlightened sides are turned; but as a counterpoise, regions in opposite circumstances receive their shadows, which involve them in a gloom of a full solar eclipse. It would, however, be a very foolish proceeding, as Sir John Herschel has well remarked, to judge of the fitness or unfitness of such conditions from what we see around us, " when, perhaps, the very combinations which convey to our minds only images of horror, may be in reality theatres of the most striking and glorious displays of beneficent contrivance."

Another satellite, the eighth, discov-primary has been thoroughly disclosed. ered in the year 1848, coïncidently by Mr. Yet from what has been scanned, the Lassel of Liverpool, and Mr. Bond in the reader will probably by this time be of United States, completes the Saturnian John Goad's opinion, that Saturn is not family, as at present known, the members such a "plumbeous blew-nosed" planet of which are separated from the huge cen- as the world once supposed. But how tral homestead by intervals ranging from ever reported of among us, and peered at half that of our moon from ourselves to by us, it may abate our conceit to know more than ten times the distance. Her- that probably the Saturnians, if there are schel's two moons are the nearest to the such, have no conception of the existence planet, skirting the edge of the ring, and of such beings as terrestrial spies and moving in its plane. Next are two of critics, taking notes of their residence, and Cassini's, discovered in 1684; then, an- making commentaries upon it. Jupiter other of Cassini's, of the year named, next will be seen by them somewhat less conis the Huyghenian; and the outermost, spicuously than Venus is by us; Mars the largest but not the brightest, is Cas- may be guessed at; but our Earth will be sini's, of 1671. We are as far, however, too distant, diminutive, and diverge too from entertaining the thought that the little from the sun, to be caught sight of, whole number of these dependent bodies unless with organs and instruments of is known, as that the architecture of the vision far superior to our own.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

SKETCH OF DR. KANE:

IN connection with the very truthful portrait-likeness of Dr. Kane which accompanies our present number, taken from life, by Brady of New York, in ambrotype, just before Dr. Kane last sailed for Europe in search of health, we subjoin the following biographical sketch :

Dr. ELISHA KENT KANE was a native of Pennsylvania, born in Philadelphia, on the 3d of February, 1822. His early years were notable chiefly for the rapid development of that spirit of adventure and love of investigation which afterward carried him over the world and led him into places which no man but he had ever trod. While yet a student, he joined one of the brothers Rogers in a geological exploration of the Blue Mountains of Virginia, and when this task had been accomplished, devoted himself with renewed assiduity to the study of the Natural Sci

ences.

In the interim he pursued the necessary course of culture to qualify himself to enter college, and, having entered,

studied diligently. In the year 1843, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and immediately after that event undertook a course in the Medical Department of the same institution. During his prosecution of scientific investigations, the Doctor had made himself thoroughly familiar with chemistry, geology, mineralogy, astronomy, and surgery, and besides, was a good classical scholar. He was one of that rare class who have the faculty of acquiring knowledge almost without ef fort, and when once acquired, of keeping it ready for use on all occasions. The natural consequence of the close application he was compelled to bestow upon his studies, however, undermined the physical system, which rebelled against the stagnation that it had undergone; so the young Doctor, now scarcely of age, came out from his closet far from robust. He made application for an appointment in the Navy, and having received it, demanded active service. His request was

But it is upon Dr. Kane's remarkable explorations in the Arctic regions, while making his search for traces of Sir John Franklin's Expedition, that his fame chiefly rests.

complied with, and he was appointed on | The kind nursing of a family in Puebla, the Diplomatic staff of the first American who received him into their house, caused Embassy to China, as Assistant Surgeon. his restoration to health, so that he reThis position gave him abundant oppor- sumed active service, and remained in tunities for the gratification of his passion Mexico until the close of the campaign. for witnessing new scenes and visiting queer Returning to his own country, he was places. He went successively through the detailed for service on the Coast Survey, accessible portions of China, Ceylon, and and continued in that employment for a the Phillippines, and explored India quite considerable time. His varied acquirethoroughly. In the island of Luzon-ments made him a most useful member of the northermost and largest of the Phillip- that important corps. pine group, he created a remarkable excitement by making a descent into the crater of Tael suspended by a bamboo rope from a crag which projected two hundred feet above the interior scoria. The natives looked upon this as a daring feat, and declared that the Doctor was the first white man who had ever attempted it. The Doctor suffered by his exposure to the gases of the crater, but was plucky enough to remain below until he had made a sketch of the interior and collected specimens, all of which he brought up with him. His remaining adventures during this first foreign experience were things to be remembered. He ascended the Himalayas, visited Egypt and went to the Upper Nile, where he made the acquaintance of Lepsius, who was at the time prosecuting his archæological researches; and obtaining his discharge from the Embassy, returned home by way of Greece, which country he traversed on foot. He reached the United States, after a brief sojourn in Europe, in the year

1846.

The earlier series of adventures in which the Doctor was engaged served only as a preparation and foundation for the greater that followed. In his modest narrative of the first expedition, the Doctor gives an account of the orders he received to join the Arctic Expedition. He says: "On the 12th of May, while bathing in the tepid waters of the Gulf of Mexico, I received one of those curious little epistles from Washington, which the electric telegraph has made so familiar to naval officers. It detached me from the Coast Survey, and ordered me to 'proceed forthwith to New-York for duty upon the Arctic Expedition.' Seven and a half days later,' he adds, I had accomplished my overland journey of thirteen hundred miles, and in forty hours more was beyond the limits of the United States. The Department had calculated my traveling time to a nicety." The Expedition consisted of "two little hermaphrodite brigs," the Advance and the Rescue. They were under the command of Lieut. Edwin J. De Haven. Dr. Kane was appointed to the Advance, as Surgeon. The vessel was towed out of this port by

66

The Mexican War now broke out, and Dr. Kane requested active service in the campaign; but the War Department preferred sending him to the coast of Africa, whither he presently sailed. While engaged in service on that coast he made an effort to visit the slave-marts of Whydah, an asthmatic old steam-tug" on the 22d but was frustrated by the coast-fever, and of May, 1850, and was followed by the was sent home in 1847 invalided. From Rescue. They pushed for the Arctic Sea the effects of that attack he never wholly direct, and on the 1st day of the following recovered. The war had not closed when December entered Lancaster Sound, where he again set foot on American soil, and he the discovery of the graves of three of had scarcely regained strength to walk, Franklin's men was made, while the British when he applied to President Polk for Searching Expedition, under Com. Penpermission to enter the service. The ney, and the American, were lying torequest was complied with, and the Doc-gether. After the expeditions separated, tor was sent to Mexico, charged with dis- Lieut. De Haven's party proceeded further patches of great importance to General to the northward, and were soon nipped Scott. He did not make his way un- by the ice, which imprisoned the Advance scathed through the enemy's country; for nine months. While thus blocked in, but was wounded, and had his horse the vessel drifted with the fields of ice for killed under him in a sharp skirmish. a distance of 1,060 miles. The opening

cordial British welcome. He, however, Cuba, on Monday, February 16, 1857. declined all public honors, and appeared Very marked funeral honors attended his but little in public. His health continu- obsequies at Havanah, at New-Orleans, ing to decline, he determined to try the at Louisville, and along the whole route effect of a change of climate, and in a by which his remains were conveyed to very short time sailed for Havana, where Philadelphia, where he sleeps his long he ended his days, far too early. sleep in his native city, embalmed in the memory of multitudes of his fellow citizens.

In character, Dr. Kane was peculiarly retiring and unostentatious; not distrustful of his abilities, but slow to obtrude them into notice; ambitious, yet prudent; energetic, amiable, and upright. In person, he was scarcely of the average height, but his muscles were firmly knit; he had a finely-developed head, remarkably full in the faculties which give artistic power and taste. His constitution, never strong, has succumbed beneath the burdens that his energetic nature imposed upon it. Dr. Kane died peacefully at Havanah,

The Doctor's published works are few. His two Arctic Narratives are comprised in three volumes, and he has issued some scientific treatises, besides preparing lectures on subjects connected with the Arctic Explorations. His labors, as a navigator and geographer, have been rewarded by a gold medal, presented by the Royal Geographical Society, and by other testimonials; but his best and most enduring record is found in the remarkable acts of a crowded life.

ASTRONOMICAL EXPEDITION TO TENE- the quantity of light emitted by the heaRIFFE. - The Titania has returned from venly bodies, and on its polarization. Teneriffe, and the head of the expedition, On the 28th August the instruments Mr. C. Piazzi Smyth, has transmitted to were removed to Alta Vista, a level shelf the Admiralty the rough notes of its trans- on the Peak, 10,900 feet high. The caractions. The expedition sailed from riage of the great Pattinson equatorial to Southampton on the 20th June, Mr. that lofty observatory was a work of diffiStephenson having very nobly placed his culty, happily overcome by the skill and steam-yacht at their disposal, and they energy of Mr. Goodall, vice-consul at Oroarrived at Teneriffe on the 8th July. tava. The instrument, when taken to Their first operations were on the Guajara. pieces, filled thirteen boxes, and required a mountain 8,870 feet high. Such was the eleven horses and men to transport it. purity of the atmosphere at this elevation, When erected and used, the fine division that the limit of vision of the Sheepshank of Saturn's ring-a much contested mattelescope was extended from stars of the ter-came out unmistakeably, and revela10th degree of magnitude to those of the tions of clouds appeared on Jupiter's sur14th. The first radiation thermometer face, which were eminently similar in form, they exposed was broken in a few minutes, and as continually interesting in their the power of the sun proving to be much changes, as those of the sea of lower greater than the maker of the instrument clouds brought about Teneriffe daily under had anticipated. Two others, on M. their eyes by the N.E. trade wind. Of Arago's plan, though marking as high as the moon some extraordinary views were 180 degrees, were soon proved to be in- obtained, notwithstanding its unfortunatesufficient to register the extraordinary in- ly low altitude at that time; and the sun tensity of the sun's rays. They were still was observed both optically and photomore unfortunate with their actinometers. graphically. Unfortunately the fine weaBy the aid of a delicate thermomultiplier ther broke up a few days after this telelent by Mr. Gassiot, they found that the scope had been erected, and the observers heat radiated by the moon, amounted to were compelled to leave the mountain on about one-third of that radiated by a can- the 14th September. They reached dle at a distance of about fifteen feet. Southampton on the 14th October.-LonThey also made numerous experiments on don paper, October 25.