But while the globe of the planet appears to be vaporous, the same is not true of the rings. We have already mentioned the fact that they are exceedingly thin in proportion to their great size and width. The thickness has not been determined with exactness, but it probably does not exceed, on the average, one hundred miles. There appear to be portions of the rings which are thicker than the average, as if the matter of which they are composed were heaped up there. This matter evidently consists of an innumerable multitude of small bodies. In other words, the rings are composed of swarms of what may be called meteors. That their composition must be of this nature, although the telescope does not reveal it, has been proved in two ways: first, by mathematical calculation, which shows that if the rings were all of a piece, whether solid or liquid, they would be destroyed by the contending forces of attraction to which they are subject; and, second, by spectroscopic observation, which proves, in a way that will be shown when we come to deal with the stars, that the rings rotate with velocities proportional to the distances of their various parts from the centre of the planet. Hence it is inferred that they must consist of a vast number of small bodies or particles.