THE FARMER AT HOME. H7 



d iy into quarters was in use long before the invention of hours. The 

 C hinese, who begin their day at midnight, and reckon to the midnight 

 It llowing, divide this interval into twelve hours, each equal to two of 

 ) irs, and distinguished by a name and particular figure. The Ro- 

 11 lans called the time between the rising and setting sun, the natural 

 day, and the time in the whole four and twenty hours the civil day, 

 a ad this definition has been adopted in modern Europe. They began 

 a ad ended their civil day at midnight, and derived this practice from 

 tieir ancient jurisprudence and rites of religion, established long be- 

 fore they had any idea of the division into hours. According to Yarro. 

 i lie first sun-dial seen at Rome was brought from Catana in Sicily, in 

 the first Punic war, as part of the spoils of that city. It was erected 

 unskilfully in the forum, and though it probably was not adapted to 

 the latitude of the place, yet it was the only measure of hours they 

 had for near a century afterwards. Thus it appears that the Romans 

 ] earned the division of the day into hours from a dial of Greek con- 

 struction. The Greeks divided the natural day into twelve hours, 

 a practice which, according to Herodotus, they derived from the 

 Babylonians. These hours were of course unequal at different sea- 

 sons of the year, varying in the same proportion as the length of the 

 natural day. 



The days of the week received their names in the following man- 

 ner. The first day of the week was called Sunday, from the sun, to 

 which by the ancient heathens it was dedicated ; Monday, from the 

 Moon ; Tuesday, from the Saxon word, Tuisco, and is the same as 

 Mars ; Wednesday, from a Saxon word, Woden, a heathen deity ; 

 Thursday, from the Saxon word, Thor ; Friday, from Friga, a 

 Saxon goddess ; and Saturday, from two Saxon words, which signify 

 the day of Saturn. Christians call the first day of the week Sunday, 

 in honor of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, who is denomin- 

 ated the Sun of Righteousness. 



DECEMBER. The month wherein the sun enters the tropic of 

 Capricorn, and makes the winter solstice Among the ancient Ro- 

 mans, December was under the protection of Vesta. Romulus assigned 

 it thirty days, Numa reduced it to twenty-nine, which Julius Caesar 

 increased to thirty-one. In the reign of Commodus this month was 

 called, by way of flattery, Amazonius, in honor of a courtezan, whom 

 that prince passionately loved, and had painted like an Amazon ; but 

 this name died with that tyrant. At the end of December they had 

 the juveniles ludi ; and the country people kept the feast of the god- 

 dess Vacuna in the fields, having then gathered in their fruits, and 

 sown their corn ; whence seemed to be derived our popular festival 

 of harvest-home. 



DEATH. An animal body, by the actions inseparable from life, 

 undergoes a continual change. Its smallest fibres become rigid ; its 

 minute vessels grow into solid fibres no longer pervious to the fluids ; 



