198 W STARRY REALMS. 



week and the names of the seven wanderers. In fact, it 

 appears that the use of a week of seven days has been 

 confined to those races who had recognised these seven 

 planets. The Incas of Peru seem to have detected no 

 other planet than Yenus, and their week had nine days, 

 to accord, apparently, with one-third of the duration of 

 the moon's revolution around the earth. The Aztecs of 

 Mexico, who were also in ignorance of the planets, Yenus 

 alone excepted, employed a week of thirteen days. 



Among the ancient nations of the old world, not only 

 the number of the days in the week, but the names of 

 those days, were associated with the names of the seven 

 wanderers to which they respectively corresponded. The 

 ancient astronomers, though ignorant of the true rela- 

 tions of the celestial bodies, had yet been enabled to 

 arrange the wanderers in their true order of distance from 

 the earth, at least in so far as it is possible to place bodies 

 m such an order when their distances are incessantly 

 changing. The dimness of Saturn and the slowness of 

 his movements justified them in regarding him as the 

 most remote of the seven. Next came Jupiter, and then 

 came Mars. It is to be remembered that, according to 

 the ancients, the sun was classified as a wanderer with the 

 bodies we now speak of as planets. His distance was less 

 than that of Mars and greater than that of Yenus. Mer- 

 cury was nearer to us than Yenus, while the moon was the 

 nearest body of all to the earth. "We thus write the seven 

 wanderers, in order of their distances, as follows Saturn, 

 Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Yenus, Mercury, Moon. This is not, 

 however, the order in which these planets stand when 

 they represent the seven days of the week. The succes- 



