The cloudy aspect of Jupiter immediately strikes the telescopic
observer. The huge planet is filled with color, and with the animation
of constant movement, but there is no appearance of markings, like those
on Mars, recalling the look of the earth. There are no white polar caps,
and no shadings that suggest the outlines of continents and oceans. What
every observer, even with the smallest telescope, perceives at once is a
pair of strongly defined dark belts, one on either side of, and both
parallel to, the planet's equator. These belts are dark compared with
the equatorial band between them and with the general surface of the
planet toward the north and the south, but they are not of a gray or
neutral shade. On the contrary, they show decided, and, at times,
brilliant colors, usually of a reddish tone. More delicate tints,
sometimes a fine pink, salmon, or even light green, are occasionally to
be seen about the equatorial zone, and the borders of the belts, while
near the poles the surface is shadowed with bluish gray, imperceptibly
deepening from the lighter hues of the equator.

All this variety of tone and color makes of a telescopic view of Jupiter
a picture that will not quickly fade from the memory; while if an
instrument of considerable power is used, so that the wonderful details
of the belts, with their scalloped edges, their diagonal filaments,
their many divisions, and their curious light and dark spots, are made
plain, the observer is deeply impressed with the strangeness of the
spectacle, and the more so as he reflects upon the enormous real
magnitude of that which is spread before his eye. The whole earth
flattened out would be but a small blotch on that gigantic disk!

Then, the visible rotation of the great Jovian globe, whose effects
become evident to a practised eye after but a few minutes' watching,