But there are further strange features in this system. The rings are so wide that their shadow extends over the greater part of the mean latitudes. During fifteen years the sun is to the south of the rings, and for fifteen years it is to the north. The countries of Saturn’s world which have the latitude of Paris endure this shadow for more than five years. At the equator the eclipse is shorter, and is only renewed every fifteen years; but there are every night, so to say, eclipses of the Saturnian moons by the rings and by themselves. In the circumpolar regions the day-star is never eclipsed by the rings; but the satellites revolve in a spiral, describing fantastic rounds, and the sun himself disappears at the pole during a long night of fifteen years. At one time it was supposed that the rings were solid, but they are now believed to consist of countless myriads of meteorites, each whirling in its own appointed pathway round the monster planet. [Illustration: IDEAL VIEW OF SATURN’S RINGS AND SATELLITES FROM THE PLANET.] As already said--leaving out of the question the cloudy atmosphere--a man standing on the equator would see nothing of the rings. A man standing at the north pole or the south pole of Saturn could see nothing either, since the rings would all lie below his horizon. But if he traveled southward from the north pole, or northward from the south pole, towards the equator, he would in time see the ringed arch appearing above the horizon, rising higher and growing wider with every mile of his journey; and when he was in a position to view the whole broad expanse, the transparent half-dark belt below, the wide radiant band rising upwards over that, and the grayish border surmounting all, he would truly have a magnificent spectacle before him. This magnificent spectacle is, however, by no means always visible, even from those parts of Saturn where alone it ever can be seen. The rings shine merely by reflected sunlight. Necessarily, therefore, while the sunbeams make one side bright the other side is dark; and not only this, but the rings throw broad and heavy shadows upon Saturn in the direction away from the sunlight. In the daytime they probably give out a faint shining, something like our own moon when seen in sunlight. During the summer nights they shine, no doubt, very beautifully. During the winter nights it so happens that their bright side is turned away; and not only that, but during the winter days the rings, while giving no light themselves to the wintry hemisphere of Saturn, completely hide the sun.