For some reason this great ring is most brilliant near the gap, and its brightness gradually falls off toward its inner side.

At a distance of something less than 20,000 miles from the planet--or perhaps it would be more correct to say above the planet, for the rings hang directly over Saturn's equator--the broad, bright ring merges into a mysterious gauzelike object, also in the form of a ring, which extends to within 9,000 or 10,000 miles of the planet's surface, and therefore itself has a width of say 10,000 miles.
In consequence of the thinness of the rings they completely disappear from the range of vision of small telescopes when, as occurs once in every fifteen years, they are seen exactly edgewise from the earth.

In a telescope powerful enough to reveal them when in that situation they resemble a thin, glowing needle run through the ball of the planet.

The rings will be in this position in 1907, and again in 1922.
The opacity of the rings is proved by the shadow which they cast upon the ball of the planet.

This is particularly manifest at the time when they are edgewise to the earth, for the sun being situated slightly above or below the plane of the rings then throws their shadow across Saturn close to its equator.