What! cried the Marchioness; do you consider it a kindness? Without doubt, answered I. This great vortex contains sixteen planets; nature to spare us the trouble of studying the motions of so many, let us see but seven: is not that a favour? But not feeling the value of this mark of consideration, we have, with great pains, discovered the other nine, which had been concealed from us: our curiosity brings its own punishment in the laborious study which astronomy now requires. I see, she replied, by the number of planets you mention, that Saturn must have five moons.[46] You are right, said I; and it is but just that he should have so many, as he is thirty years in going round the sun; and in some parts the nights last fifteen years, for the same reason that on our globe, which turns in a year, there are nights, beneath the poles of six months' duration. But Saturn, being at twice the distance that Jupiter is from the sun, consequently ten times farther than the earth; his five moons, faintly as they are illumined, would not give sufficient light during his nights, he has therefore a wonderful resource, the only one of the kind we have discovered in the universe: 'tis a large circle or ring[47] which environs the planet, and which, being sufficiently elevated to escape almost entirely the shadow of Saturn, reflects the sun's light on the darkened parts, and reflects it more strongly than all the five moons, because it is not so high as the lowest of them. [Footnote 46: He has seven, and Herschel six. In all there are twenty-five planets, without reckoning ninety-one comets known in 1800.] [Footnote 47: Its exterior diameter is sixty seven thousand seven hundred leagues.]