gravitation, in electricity—so also in the vitality on their surfaces.
TITAN AND MIMAS.
At length we came within the influence of the great Ringed World, and felt ourselves dashing towards it by the mighty power of gravitation. Like three huge rainbows in the starry sky appeared the mighty rings—vast tracks of nebulous matter cast off by the planet in its rapid whirl. "Such rings as these," Arauniel said, "were probably once around all the exterior planets. Around Jupiter, where the four moons sometimes still remind us of them; around little Mars, even when Deimos and Phobos were in formation; around the Earth, when the Moon was being cast off into space in palæozoic times. All once were ringed worlds, but they have passed that stage of being. Yet here we have a very ancient world still by its own inherent power retaining the ring formation,—a last relic of a primæval stage of world-existence."
As we rushed forward, we felt the force of attraction drawing us from our onward course. We were deflecting towards one of the minor worlds that rolled around that great ringed
