THE PLANETS. 417 



piod. Comment, in Aristot. Meteorol. cap. 7, 3 in Ideler's 

 edition of the Metereol. torn. ii. p. 163 ; also torn. i. pp. 199 

 and 251.) 



whether it is a certain number of members which is passed 

 over, or whether it is this number increased by any mul- 

 tiple of the number of members (in this case seven) of the 

 period. By passing over twenty-three ( = 3.74-2) mem- 

 bers, according to the second method, that of the planetary 

 hours, the same result is obtained as when the first method, 

 that of the decans is adopted, in which only two members 

 are to be passed over. 



Attention has already been directed (Note 13) to the 

 remarkable resemblance between the fourth day of the week, 

 dies Mercurii, of the Indian Budha-vara, and the old Saxon 

 Wodanes-dag. (Jacob Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 1844, 

 Bd. i. p. 844.) The identity affirmed by William Jones to 

 exist between the founder of the Buddhist religion and the 

 race of Odin or Wuotan, and Wotan, famous in Northern 

 heroic tales, as well as in the history of Northern civilization, 

 will, perhaps, gain more interest when it is called to mind 

 that the name of Wotan is met with in a part of the new 

 continent, as belonging to a half-mythical, half-historical per- 

 sonage, concerning whom I have collected a great number of 

 notes in my work on the monuments and myths of the natives of 

 America ( Vues des Cordillereset Monumens des peuples indigenes 

 de VAmerique,tom. i. pp. 208, and 382-384 ; torn. ii. p. 356). 

 This American Wotan is, according to the traditions of the 

 natives of Chiapa and Soconusco, the grandson of the man 

 who saved his life in a boat during the great deluge, and 

 renewed the human race ; he commenced the erection of large 

 buildings, during which time ensued a confusion of languages, 

 war, and dispersion of races, as in the erection of the Mexican 

 pyramids of Cholula. His name was also transferred to the 

 calendar of the natives of Chiapa, as was the name of Odin 

 in the north of Germany. One of the five-day periods four 

 of which formed the month of the people of Chiapa and the 

 Aztecs was named after him. While the names and signs of 

 the days among the Aztecs were taken from animals and plants, 



