CHAPTER V.
Beautiful Saturn.
DELIGHTFULLY busy world next met my gaze. Saturn, supreme in love, with its mysterious rings and its eight moons, now held my attention and won my admiration.
This world is almost as large as Jupiter, and its soil is more fertile. The inhabitants resemble us in physical appearance, except that they are twice our size.
Like Jupiter, it is enveloped in thick semi-liquid clouds which are never at rest. This changing atmosphere causes continual friction of particles, and this serves to produce sufficient heat to counteract the frigid blasts that would otherwise freeze out the whole planet. These atmospheric conditions attracted my attention to a great degree. I estimated as best I could, and ascertained that Saturn receives as much heat from this
89
