that skilled observers see with an instrument of the same power are only laying up for themselves stores of disappointment. Mr. Mee's frank confession may be commended to the notice of those who hope to see at the first glance all that old students have learned to see by years of hard work. 'The first time I saw Saturn through a large telescope, a fine 12-inch reflector, I confess I could not see the division (Cassini's), though the view of the planet was one of exquisite beauty and long to be remembered, and notwithstanding the fact that the much fainter division of Encke was at the moment visible to the owner of the instrument!' It is extremely unlikely that the beginner will see the division with anything much less than 3 inches, and even with that aperture he will not see it until the rings are well opened. The writer's experience is that it is not by any means so readily seen as is sometimes supposed. Three inches will show it under good conditions; with 3-7/8 it can be steadily held, even when the rings are only moderately open (steady holding is a very different thing from 'glimpsing'), but even with larger apertures the division becomes by no means a simple object as the rings close up (Fig. 26). In fact, there is nothing better fitted to fill the modern observer's mind with a most wholesome respect for the memory of a man like Cassini, than the thought that with his most imperfect appliances this great observer detected the division, a much more difficult feat than the mere seeing it when its existence and position are already known, and discovered also four of the Saturnian satellites. As for the minor divisions in the ring, if they are divisions, they are out of the question altogether for small apertures, and are often invisible even to skilled observers using the finest telescopes. Barnard's drawing (Plate XXIV.), as already noted, shows no trace of Encke's division; but nine months later the same observer saw it faintly in both ansæ of the ring. The conclusion from this and many similar observations seems to be that the marking is variable, as may very well be, from the constitution of the ring. The Crape Ring is beyond any instrument of less than four inches, and even with such an aperture requires favourable circumstances. [Illustration: FIG. 26. SATURN, 3-7/8-inch.]