_“Square-shouldered” Aspect._—Sir W. Herschel, from observations in April 1805, said:—“There is a singularity which distinguishes the figure of Saturn from that of all the other planets.” On April 19 of the year named he described the planet as “like a parallelogram with the four corners rounded off deeply, but not so much as to bring it to a spheroid.” This gave the globe a “square-shouldered” aspect. But this curious figure appears to have been very rarely observed in subsequent years; and accurate measures with the micrometer were adduced in 1833-48 in proof that no such anomaly had a real existence. Dr. Kitchiner, commenting on Herschel’s remarks, said:—“I have occasionally observed this planet during thirty years, and I do not remember to have seen the body of it of this singular form except for a few months about September 1818.” But there is no doubt that occasionally the planet _does_ assume an _apparent_ form similar to that attributed to it by Herschel. In the autumn of 1880 I studied the visible appearance of Saturn by means of a 10-inch reflector, and recorded as follows:—“The S. pole, over which the dark belts lay, seemed compressed in the most remarkable manner; but where a bright belt intervened, in about lat. 45°, the contrary effect was produced. Here the limbs were apparently raised (by irradiation) above the spherical contour; so that the distorted image gave the planet that distinctly ‘square-shouldered’ aspect sometimes mentioned in text-books.” The explanation appears to me very simple. The singular figure is due to the contrasting effects of the belts. While the bright belt in lat. 45° causes a very evident shouldering-out of the limbs at its extremities, the dark belts nearer the pole and the equator act with opposite effect, for they apparently compress the disk where they meet the limbs, and thus the eye discerns a figure to all appearance distorted into the “square-shouldered” form. Mr. J. L. McCance confirmed these remarks by independent observations at the same period with a 10-inch reflector by Calver (‘Monthly Notices,’ vol. xli. pp. 84, 282).