The Vailan or annular theory: A synopsis of Prof. I. N. Vail's argument in support of the claim that this Earth once possessed a Saturn-like system of rings

by Stephen Bowers

EVIDENCE FROM OTHER PLANETS.

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.