Saturn was a sore puzzle to the early telescopic observers. They did not for a long time grasp the fact that it was surrounded by a ring--so slow is the human mind to seek for explanations out of the ordinary course of things. The protrusions of the ring on either side of the planet, at first looked to Galileo like two minor globes placed on opposite sides of it, and slightly overlapping the disc. He therefore informed Kepler that "Saturn consists of three stars in contact with one another." Yet he was genuinely puzzled by the fact that the two attendant bodies (as he thought them) always retained the same position with regard to the planet's disc, and did not appear to revolve around it, nor to be in any wise shifted as a consequence of the movements of our earth. About a year and a half elapsed before he again examined Saturn; and, if he was previously puzzled, he was now thoroughly amazed. It happened just then to be one of those periods when the ring is edgewise towards the earth, and of course he only saw a round disc like that of Jupiter. What, indeed, had become of the attendant orbs? Was some demon mocking him? Had Saturn devoured his own children? He was, however, fated to be still more puzzled, for soon the minor orbs reappeared, and, becoming larger and larger as time went on, they ended by losing their globular appearance and became like two pairs of arms clasping the planet from each side! (see Plate XVI., p. 242). Galileo went to his grave with the riddle still unsolved, and it remained for the famous Dutch astronomer, Huyghens, to clear up the matter. It was, however, some little time before he hit upon the real explanation. Having noticed that there were dark spaces between the strange appendages and the body of the planet, he imagined Saturn to be a globe fitted with handles at each side; "ansæ" these came to be called, from the Latin _ansa_, which means a handle. At length, in the year 1656, he solved the problem, and this he did by means of that 123-foot tubeless telescope, of which mention has already been made. The ring happened then to be at its edgewise period, and a careful study of the behaviour of the ansæ when disappearing and reappearing soon revealed to Huyghens the true explanation. [Illustration: PLATE XVI. EARLY REPRESENTATIONS OF SATURN From an illustration in the _Systema Saturnium_ of Christian Huyghens. (Page 242)] THE PLANETS URANUS AND NEPTUNE