We have never seen the actual face of Saturn, and the sun is never
visible to its inhabitants. It is a planet upon which there is probably
perpetual day. The belts are composed of the same kind of material as
the super-crust of the earth--silicious, calcareous and carbonaceous
matter. They will in time become a part of the planet’s sedimentary
formation.
When the inveterate fires of the sun shall have died out, forms of
carbon and associated forms of aqueous and mineral matter will form an
annular system around it.
A burning world must be a smoking world, and from its furnaces must
arise vast volumes of unconsumed carbon to mingle with suspended vapors.
When Saturn’s rings fall to the body of the planet its moons will
necessarily retire a little farther from it. Astronomers say that our
moon is gradually retiring from the earth. Then it must have had an
annular system which fell and caused the moon to recede.