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"How could men who applaud Mademoiselle Clotilde and M. Vestris at eight o'clock in the evening have been at Bar and Chatillon in the morning settling accounts with the conductor of a diligence? Come, my sons, a last look at the map to choose our spot." The four young men bent over Cassini's map.
Saturn has perhaps received more than its share of attention owing to these rings. This led to other discoveries. The occasional disappearance of Cassini's Japetus was found on investigation to be due to the same causes as that of Jupiter's fourth satellite, and proves that it always turns the same face to the planet. Uranus and Neptune.
"Yes," they answered with one voice. "Then let us mount and be off. Don't forget we have to be at the Opera at nine o'clock this evening." Springing into his saddle, he was the first to jump the ditch, reach the river, and there unhesitatingly took the ford which the pretended courier had pointed out on Cassini's map.
This fact had also been established for Saturn's fifth satellite, and may be true for all satellites. In 1826 Struve measured the diameters of the four satellites, and found them to be 2,429, 2,180, 3,561, and 3,046 miles. In modern times much interest has been taken in watching a rival to Cassini's famous spot.
Kirkwood, in fact, showed, in 1867, that a body circulating in the chasm between the bright rings known as "Cassini's division," would have a period nearly commensurable with those of four out of the eight moons; and Meyer of Geneva subsequently calculated all such combinations, with the result of bringing out coincidences between regions of maximum perturbation and the limiting and dividing lines of the system.
Such was in his time the reputation of a mineral spring near Bologna, that Pope Alexander the Seventh set him to analyse the waters of it; and so satisfactory were his proofs of its very slight importance to health, that the same pope called him to Rome to examine the waters round that capital; but dying soon after his arrival, he had no time to recompence Cassini's labours, though a very elegantly-minded man, and a great encourager of learning in all its branches.
One of Cassini's maps, on which could be followed the whole lay of the land, was spread on the table. Before saying why this courier was there, and with what object the map was unfolded, let us cast a glance at the three new personages whose names had echoed through the ballroom, and who are destined to play an important part in the rest of this history.
Slight as the hint was, it had come in good time; for I had grown desperate from the sight of the perpetual casualties round me, and, like Cassini's idea of the man walking on the edge of the precipice, had felt some inclination to jump off, and take my chance.
I remember looking out Toulx in Cassini's great map at the Bodleian Library. The railway through the centre of France went in those days no farther than Vierzon. From Vierzon to Châteauroux one travelled by an ordinary diligence, from Châteauroux to La Châtre by a humbler diligence, from La Châtre to Boussac by the humblest diligence of all. At Boussac diligence ended, and patache began.
Cassini had noted an oval form in 1691. This was confirmed by La Hire, Romer, and Picard. W. Herschel supposed the spots to be masses of cloud in the atmosphere an opinion still accepted. Many of them were very permanent. Cassini's great spot vanished and reappeared nine times between 1665 and 1713. It was close to the northern margin of the southern belt.
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