MARS.

This planet may be easily recognized by its bright, ruddy
appearance, and its steady light. It resembles in size and
color the stars Arcturus, in Bootes, and Antares, in Scorpio;
but, as it is not like them, continually winking, we may consider
it, in some respects, a body of superior gravity. Our
readers will be pleased to learn that Mars is an oblate
spheroid, with a diameter of 4,222 miles. It is seven times
smaller than the Earth; its day is forty-four minutes longer
than ours, and its year is equal to twenty-two and a half of
our months. It receives from the sun only one half as much
light and heat as the Earth, and has no moon; which, in
some respects, may be considered a blessing, as the poets of
Mars cannot be eternally writing sonnets on that subject.

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Mars takes its name from the God of War, who was considered
the patron of soldiers, usually termed sons of Mars,
though it was well remarked by some philosopher, that they
are generally sons of pa's also. Macauley, however, in his
severe review of “Hanson's Life of the Rev. Eleazer Williams,”
remarks with great originality, that “It is a wise
child that knows its own father.”

Mars is also the tutelary divinity of Fillibusters, and we
are informed by several of the late troops of the late President
William Walker, that this planet was of great use in
guiding that potentate during his late nocturnal rambles
through the late Republic of Sonora. The ruddy appearance
of Mars is not attributed to his former bad habits, but to the
great height of his atmosphere, which must be very favorable
to the æronauts of that region, where, doubtless, ballooning
is the principal method of locomotion. Upon the whole,
Mars is but a cold and ill-conditioned planet, and if, as
some persons believe, the souls of deceased soldiers are sent
thither, there can be little inducement to die in service, unless,
indeed, larger supplies of commissary whiskey and tobacco
are to be found there than the present telescopic observations
would lead us to believe.

JUPITER.

This magnificent planet is the largest body, excepting
the Sun, in the Solar System. “It may be readily distinguished
from the fixed stars by its peculiar splendor and
magnitude, appearing to the unclothed eye, almost as

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resplendent as Venus, although it is more than seven times
her distance from the Sun.” Its day is but nine hours, fifty-five
minutes and fifty seconds; but it has rather a lengthy
year, equivalent to nearly twelve years of our time. It is
about thirteen hundred times larger than the Earth.

In consequence of the rapid movement of Jupiter upon
his axis, his form is that of an oblate spheroid, very considerably
flattened at its poles, and the immense centrifugal
force resulting from this movement (26,554 miles per hours),
would, undoubtedly, have long since caused him to fly
asunder, were it not for a wise provision of nature, which
has caused enormous belts or hoops, to encircle his entire
surface.

These hoops, usually termed belts, are plainly visible
through the telescope. They are eight in number, and are
supposed to be made of gutta percha, with an outer edge of
No. 1 boiler iron. Owing to the great distance of Jupiter
from the Sun, he receives but one twenty-seventh part of the
light and heat that we do from that body. To preserve the
great balance of Nature, it is therefore probable, that the
whales of Jupiter are twenty-seven times larger than ours,
and that twenty-seven times as much cord-wood is cut on
that planet as on the Earth.

The axis of Jupiter is perpendicular to the plane of its
orbit; hence its climate has no variation of seasons in the
same latitude. It has four moons, three of which may be
readily discerned with an ordinary spy-glass. By observation
on the eclipses of these satellites, the velocity of light

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has been measured, and we find that light is precisely eight
minutes and thirteen seconds in coming to us from the Sun.
According to the poet, “the light of other days” has a considerably
slow motion. Jupiter, in the Heathen Mythology,
was the King of the Gods. As there can be no doubt that,
with the progress of time, advancement in liberal ideas, and
a knowledge of the immortal principles of democracy, has
obtained among these divinities, it is probable that he has
long since been deposed, and his kingdom converted into a
republic, over whose destinies, according to the well-known
principles of availability, some one-eyed Cyclops, unknown
to fame, has probably been elected to preside. His representative
will, however, always remain King of the Planets,
while such things as kings exist; after which he will become
their undisputed president. Jupiter is the patron of Monarchs,
Presidents and Senators. It is doubtful, however,
whether he pays much attention to State Senators, or even
continues his patronage to him of the Congressional body
who fails to be re-elected, although bent on being notorious,
he may continue to vociferate that he “knows a hawk from
a hand-saw,” and was “not educated at West Pint.”

SATURN.

Whoever, during the present year, has had his attention
attracted by that beautiful group, the Pleiades, or Seven
Stars, may have noticed near them, in the constellation
Taurus, a star apparently of the first magnitude, shining with
a peculiarly white light, and beaming down with a gentle,

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steady radiance upon the Earth. This is the beautiful planet
Saturn, which, moving slowly at the rate of two minutes daily
among the stars, may be readily traced from one constellation
to another. Saturn is nearly nine hundred millions of miles
from the Sun. His volume is eleven hundred times that of
the Earth; and while his year is equivalent to twenty-nine
and a half of ours, his day is shorter by more than one-half.
Receiving but one-nineteenth part of the light from the Sun
that we do, it follows that the inhabitants of Saturn are not
equally enlightened with us; and supposing them to be physically
constituted as we are, stoves and cooking ranges undoubtedly
go off at a ready sale and pretty high figure among
them. Saturn differs from all the other planets, in being
surrounded by three rings, consecutive to each other, which
shine by reflection from the Sun, with superior brilliancy to
the planet itself. It is also attended by eight satellites.
Many theories have been started to account for the rings of
Saturn, but none of them are satisfactory. Our own opinion
is that this planet was originally diversified, like the Earth,
with continents of land and vast oceans of water. By the
rapid motion of the planet upon its axis, the oceans were collected
near the equatorial regions, whence by the immense
centrifugal force, they were subsequently thrown clear from
the surface, and remained revolving about the denser body,
at that distance where the centrifugal force and the attraction
of gravitation, from the other planets, were in equilibrio.

The ships floating on the surface of the waters at the time
of this great convulsion, of course, went with them, and it is

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a most painful reflection to the humane mind, that their crews
have undoubtedly long since perished, after maintaining for
a while their miserably isolated existence on a precarious
supply of fish.

It is a curious and interesting fact, much dwelt on in
popular treatises on Astronomy, that were a cannon ball fired
from the Earth to Saturn, it would be one hundred and
eighty years in getting there. The only useful deduction
that we are able to make from this fact, however, is, that the
inhabitants of Saturn, if warned of their danger by the sight
of the flash or the sound of the explosion, would have ample
opportunity in the course of the one hundred and eighty years,
to dodge the shot!

Saturn was the father of all the Heathen Divinities, and
we regret to say, was a most disreputable character. It will
hardly be credited that he had a revolting habit of devouring
his children shortly after their birth, and it was only by a
pious deception of his wife, who furnished him with dogs,
sheep, buffalo, and the like, on these occasions, with assurances
that they were his offspring, that Jupiter and his
brothers were preserved from their impending fate. A person
of such a disposition could never be tolerated in a civilized
community, and there is little doubt that if Saturn were
a resident of the Earth at the present time, and should persist
in his unpleasant practices, he would speedily be arrested
and held to bail in a large amount.

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HERSCHEL.

We know little of this planet, except that with its six
moons, it was discovered by Dr. Herschel, a native of the
island of England (situated on the north-west coast of
Europe), in 1781. It was named by him the “Georgium
Sidus,” as a tribute of respect to a miserable, blind, old
lunatic, who at that time happened to be king of the Island.
Overlooking the sycophancy of the man, in their admiration
for the services of the Astronomer, his philosophical contemporaries
re-named the planet, Herschel, by which title it is
still known. An attempt made by the courtiers of the English
king to call it Uranus (a Latin expression, meaning
“You reign over us”), happily failed to succeed. Herschel
is supposed to be about eighty times larger than the Earth,
and to have a period of revolution of about eighty-four years,
but its diurnal motion has not yet been discovered.

NEPTUNE

Was discovered by a French gentleman, named Le Verrier,
in 1846. It is supposed to be about forty thousand miles
in diameter, and to have a period of one hundred and sixty-four
years. But of this planet, and another still more remote
from the Sun, lately discovered (to which the literati
and savans of Europe propose to give the name of Squibob,
a Hebrew word signifying, “There you go with your eye
out”), we know little from actual observation. That they
exist, there can be no doubt, and it is possible, to use the

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expressive language of a modern philosopher, “There are a few
more of the same sort left” beyond them.

Neptune is the God of the Sea, an unpleasant element,
full of disagreeable fish, horrible sea-lious, and equivocal serpents,
the reflection on which, or some other reasons, generally
makes every one sick who ventures upon it. He married
a Miss Amphitrite, who, unlike sailors' wives in general,
usually accompanies her husband on all his voyages. Neptune
is the tutelar deity of seamen, who generally allude to
him as “Davy Jones,” and speak of the ocean as his “locker”
(a locker indeed, in which untold thousands of their
worn-out bones are bleaching), and on crossing the Equinoctial
line, it was formerly the custom among them to perform
certain rites in his honor, which pagan ceremonial has gradually
passed out of date.

THE ASTEROIDS.

These are ten small planets, revolving about the Sun in
different orbits, situated between those of Mars and Jupiter.
They can seldom be seen without a powerful telescope; and
are of no great importance when you see them. Our friend,
Dr. Olbers, who paid much attention to these little bodies, is
of the opinion that they are fragments of a large celestial
sphere, which formerly revolved between Mars and Jupiter,
and which, by some mighty internal convulsion, burst into
pieces. With this opinion we coincide. What caused the
explosion, how many lives were lost, and whether blame
could be attached to any one on account of it, are

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circumstances that we shall probably remain in as profound ignorance
of as the unfortunate inhabitants of the planet found
themselves after the occurrence. What purpose the Asteroids
now serve in the great economy of the Universe, it is
impossible to ascertain; it may be that they are reserved as
receptacles for the departed souls of ruined merchants and
broken brokers. As the Spaniard profoundly remarks,
“Quien Sabe?”