THE NAMES OF THE PLANETS 199 



gion of the week days is arrived at in the way we shall 

 now mention. 



In ancient times the day and night together were 

 divided, as at present, into twenty-four hours. Each 

 one of these hours was consecrated to one of the planets. 

 The order in which the hours were appropriated to the 

 different wanderers was simply the order of their dis- 

 tances, and each day bore the name of the wanderer to 

 which its first hour was devoted. As a beginning the first 

 hour is consecrated to the most distant object, Saturn, and 

 accordingly the corresponding day is Saturn-day, or 

 Saturday ; the second hour belongs to Jupiter, the third 

 to Mars, the fourth to the Sun, the fifth to Yenus, the 

 sixth to Mercury, and the seventh to the Moon. Then 

 the eighth hour begins with Saturn again, the ninth with 

 Jupiter, and so on until after twenty-one hours the list 

 of the wanderers has been repeated three times over. The 

 twenty-second hour begins, of course, with Saturn again, 

 the twenty-third belongs to Jupiter, the twenty-fourth to 

 Mars, and thus the whole twenty-four hours of Saturday 

 are complete. The twenty-fifth hour, which is the first 

 hour of the next day, falls to the wanderer next to Mars, 

 that is to the Sun. The first hour of the day next after 

 Saturday is accordingly consecrated to the Sun, and as the 

 name of each day is derived from that of the planet pre- 

 siding over its first hour it follows that the name of the 

 day following Saturday is to be the Day of the Sun, that 

 is, of course, Sunday. You may follow the same calcula- 

 tion throughout. 



The following is an equivalent but shorter process. 

 Write around a circle the names of the seven wanderer* 



