some of the phenomena of the solar system and of outer space, and the
consequent immense advances that the Saturnians have made in
astronomical knowledge, the Genius continues:

"'If I were to show you the different parts of the surface of this
planet you would see the marvelous results of the powers possessed by
these highly intellectual beings, and of the wonderful manner in which
they have applied and modified matter. Those columnar masses, which seem
to you as if rising out of a mass of ice below, are results of art, and
processes are going on within them connected with the formation and
perfection of their food. The brilliant-colored fluids are the results
of such operations as on the earth would be performed in your
laboratories, or more properly in your refined culinary apparatus, for
they are connected with their system of nourishment. Those opaque azure
clouds, to which you saw a few minutes ago one of those beings directing
his course, are works of art, and places in which they move through
different regions of their atmosphere, and command the temperature and
the quantity of light most fitted for their philosophical researches,
or most convenient for the purposes of life.'"[11]

[Footnote 11: Davy, of course, was aware that, owing to increase of
distance, the sun would appear to an inhabitant of Saturn with a disk
only one ninetieth as great in area as that which it presents to our
eyes.]

But, while Saturn does not appear, with our present knowledge, to hold
out any encouragement to those who would regard it as the abode of
living creatures capable of being described in any terms except those of
pure imagination, yet it is so unique a curiosity among the heavenly
bodies that one returns again and again to the contemplation of its