float away as vast icebergs do in our own polar regions; but this is not sufficient, even supposing it was the case, to prove that other parts of the planet did not enjoy as equable a temperature as our own globe possesses, in those parts where no such agencies are at work. But looking at the general configuration of land and water on Mars we are struck with the different laying out or apportioning of it from that of our own globe. The seas there are comparatively small, many of them landlocked, and more resembling inland lakes than oceans; indeed, there are many of them that, strictly speaking, are but lakes. And although there are islands their number is very limited. Land transport to any part of Mars would appear to be much easier than on the earth. Of its mountain scenery, its forests, and its prairies, we can know nothing; but we may well believe, from what we can see, that they exist as extensively in analogous proportion to the rest of the planet. Putting all these facts together then, shall we say they are prepared for nothing! that no life exists there, especially no intellectual life, no material existence? As well might we expect to find a palace, magnificently built and adorned, with its various apartments sumptuously furnished from the foundation to the top, with every comfort and convenience and appurtenance for being inhabited, and be told it was never intended for a habitation. It must indeed be a strange perversion of mind that can persist (after a close scrutiny of this beautiful planet, such as we have had) in refusing to see in it one of the many worlds formed by God as an abode for His creatures; or resist the powerful conviction and conclusion that it is the seat of life in all its varied

forms of beauty and glory and excellence, as is perceptible in our own dwelling-place.

JUPITER.

PASSING onwards through the depths of space across a gulf of 500 millions of miles, encountering as we do so the wonderful zone of above 120 minor planets or asteroids half way on our journey, of which we shall speak hereafter, we now approach the grandest globe in the solar system, Jupiter, the sovereign of our planetary family of worlds, and only to be approached in magnitude by his fellow-giant Saturn, which, with his wondrous ring, lies out far beyond him, separated by another vast gulf of 500 millions of miles, being as far from him again as Jupiter is from the sun. To either of these giant globes the earth is but a speck, being about the proportion of a garden pea to a large-sized melon: so insignificant do we become in the light of this stupendous world, or his ringed fellow,-the one attended by his four moons, the other by his ring and eight moons. While the earth is but 8,000 miles in diameter, Jupiter measures, according to the most recent measurements, 85,000; according to others, 87,000; while his volume or bulk is 1,200 that of the earth, and his mass or density 300 times ours. This latter quality, indeed, would be four times as great were the materials of which this great planet is composed of the same density as the earth; and were they so, the density of Jupiter would be 1,200 times the density of the earth. But as it is, his density, by the most accurate estimate, does not exceed water by more than one third; his preponderance over the earth in mass, therefore, is only to be attributed to his

superior, magnitude, and is actually but 300 times that of the earth. But be this as it may, the appearance of Jupiter presents to the eye, as a world possibly inhabited or intended to be inhabited, the grandest sight in the solar system; and the more so as, surrounded by four satellites or moons revolving round him, he affords a representation in miniature of our own solar system,—his moons revolving round him as his companions do round our sun. Were we to approach this stupendous globe as near as our moon is to us, he would appear to cover a space in the heavens fourteen hundred times the apparent diameter of our moon to us: such is indeed his actual appearance to his own nearest satellite. The effect to us would be past conception: the entire hemisphere would appear to us filled with his circumference; while the lustre and brilliancy of his surface, which although at such a vast distance from us shines with a lustre more than three times that of our moon, would shed upon us a light as bright as day; while his four moons would. lend their additional borrowed lustre to the scene. Such a light is probably beheld from the nearest of the four moons to the inhabitants of it, if any there are.

But what, on the other hand, would be the appearance which our sun would present to the inhabitants of this enormous planet? and what the consequences of his position, or results? These we shall find to be most important. And here the case is reversed from that of those planets that lie within the orbit of the earth, or as in the case of the earth itself; and instead of the broad and glaring solar disc (as large nearly as Jupiter himself appears to his own nearest satellite), as the sun would appear to Mercury, or even the more moderate-sized