mathematician. Laplace, like his predecessors, supposed
these rings to be solid, and explained their stability
as due to certain irregularities of contour which
Herschel bad pointed out. But about 1851 Professor
Peirce, of Harvard, showed the untenability of this
conclusion, proving that were the rings such as Laplace
thought them they must fall of their own weight.
Then Professor J. Clerk-Maxwell, of Cambridge, took
the matter in hand, and his analysis reduced the puzzling
rings to a cloud of meteoric particles--a "shower
of brickbats"--each fragment of which circulates exactly
as if it were an independent planet, though of
course perturbed and jostled more or less by its fellows.
Mutual perturbations, and the disturbing pulls
of Saturn's orthodox satellites, as investigated by Maxwell,
explain nearly all the phenomena of the rings in
a manner highly satisfactory.

After elaborate mathematical calculations covering
many pages of his paper entitled "On the Stability
of Saturn's Rings," he summarizes his deductions as
follows:

"Let us now gather together the conclusions we
have been able to draw from the mathematical theory
of various kinds of conceivable rings.

"We found that the stability of the motion of a
solid ring depended on so delicate an adjustment, and
at the same time so unsymmetrical a distribution of