In the last of the letters which our author addressed to Velser, and which was written in December 1612, he recurs to his former discovery of the elongated shape, or rather the triple structure, of Saturn. The singular figure which he had observed in this planet had entirely disappeared; and he evidently announces the fact to Velser, lest it should be used by his enemies to discredit the accuracy of his observations. "Looking on Saturn," says he, "within these few days, I found it solitary, without the assistance of its accustomed stars, and, in short, perfectly round and defined like Jupiter; and such it still remains. Now, what can be said of so strange a metamorphosis? Are the two smaller stars consumed like the spots on the sun? Have they suddenly vanished and fled? or has Saturn devoured his own children? or was the appearance indeed fraud and illusion, with which the glasses have for so long a time mocked me, and so many others who have often observed with me? Now, perhaps, the time is come to revive the withering hopes of those who, guided by more profound contemplations, have followed all the fallacies of the new observations, and recognised their impossibilities. I cannot resolve what to say in a chance so strange, so new, and so unexpected; the shortness of the time, the unexampled occurrence, the weakness of my intellect, and the terror of being mistaken, have greatly confounded me." Although Galileo struggled to obtain a solution of this mystery, yet he had not the good fortune to succeed. He imagined that the two smaller stars would reappear, in consequence of the supposed revolution of the planet round its axis; but the discovery of the ring of Saturn, and of the obliquity of its plane to the ecliptic, was necessary to explain the phenomena which were so perplexing to our author. The ill health to which Galileo was occasionally subject, and the belief that the air of Florence was prejudicial to his complaints, induced him to spend much of his time at Selve, the villa of his friend Salviati. This eminent individual had ever been the warmest friend of Galileo, and seems to have delighted in drawing round him the scientific genius of the age. He was a member of the celebrated Lyncaean Society, founded by Prince Frederigo Cesi; and though he is not known as the author of any important discovery, yet he has earned, by his liberality to science, a glorious name, which will be indissolubly united with the immortal destiny of Galileo.