Saturn was a favourite object of study with Herschel from the very beginning of his astronomical career, and seven papers on the subject were published by him between 1790 and 1806. He noticed and measured the deviation of the planet’s form from a sphere (1790); he observed various markings on the surface of the planet itself, and seems to have seen the inner ring, now known from its appearance as the crape ring (chapter XIII., § 295), though he did not recognise its nature. By observations of some markings at some distance from the equator he discovered (1790) that Saturn rotated on an axis, and fixed the period of rotation at about 10 h. 16 m. (a period differing only by about 2 minutes from modern estimates), and by similar observations of the ring (1790) concluded that it rotated in about 10-1∕2 hours, the axis of rotation being in each case perpendicular to the plane of the ring. The satellite Japetus, discovered by Cassini in 1671 (chapter VIII., § 160), had long been recognised as variable in brightness, the light emitted being several times as much at one time as at another. Herschel found that these variations were not only perfectly regular, but recurred at an interval equal to that of the satellite’s period of rotation round its primary (1792), a conclusion which Cassini had thought of but rejected as inconsistent with his observations. This peculiarity was obviously capable of being explained by supposing that different portions of Japetus had unequal power of reflecting light, and that like our moon it turned on its axis once in every revolution, in such a way as always to present the same face towards its primary, and in consequence each face in turn to an observer on the earth. It was natural to conjecture that such an arrangement was general among satellites, and Herschel obtained (1797) some evidence of variability in the satellites of Jupiter, which appeared to him to support this hypothesis. Herschel’s observations of other planets were less numerous and important. He rightly rejected the supposed observations by Schroeter (§ 271) of vast mountains on Venus, and was only able to detect some indistinct markings from which the planet’s rotation on an axis could be somewhat doubtfully inferred. He frequently observed the familiar bright bands on Jupiter commonly called belts, which he was the first to interpret (1793) as bands of cloud. On Mars he noted the periodic diminution of the white caps on the two poles, and observed how in these and other respects Mars was of all planets the one most like the earth.