arth, is prolonged to the Sun. These are the epochs to be
selected for observation. It shines then, all night, like some dazzling
star of the first magnitude, of excessive whiteness: nor can it be
confounded either with Venus, more luminous still (for she is never
visible at midnight, in the full South, but is South-west in the
evening, or South-east in the morning), nor with Mars, whose fires are
ruddy.

In the telescope, the immense planet presents a superb disk that an
enlargement of forty times shows us to be the same size to all
appearance as that of the Moon seen with the unaided eye. Its shape is
not absolutely spherical, but spheroid--that is, flattened at the poles.
The flattening is 1/17.

We know that the Earth's axis dips a certain quantity on the plane of
her orbit, and that it is this inclination that produces the seasons.
Now it is not the same for Jupiter. His axis of rotation remains almost
vertical throughout the course of his year, and results in the complete
absence of climates and seasons. There is neither glacial zone, nor
tropic zone; the position of Jupiter is eternally that of the Earth at
the season of the equinox, and the vast world enjoys, as it were,
perpetual spring. It knows neither the hoar-frost nor the snows of
winter. The heat received from the Sun diminishes gradually from the
equator to the poles without abrupt transitions, and the duration of day
and night is equal there throughout the entire year, under every
latitude. A privileged world, indeed!

It is surrounded by a very dense, thick atmosphere, which undergoes more
extensive variations than could be produced by the Sun at such a
distance. Spectral analysis detects a large amount of water-vapor,
showing that this planet still possesses a very considerable quantity of
intrinsic heat.

Most conspicuous upon this globe are the larger or smaller bands or
markings (gray and white, sometimes tinted yellow, or of a maroon or
chocolate hue) by which its surface is streaked, particularly in the
vicinity of the equator. These different belts vary, and are constantly
modified, either in form or color. Sometimes, they are irregular, and
cut up; at others they are interspersed with more or less brilliant
patches. These patches are not affixed to the surface of the globe, like
the seas and continents of the Earth; nor do they circulate round the
planet like the satellites, in more or less elongated and regular
revolutions, but are relati