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Longitude and Time-Table: Rome

Rome... o 5° P.M.

City of Mexico. 5 23 A.M.

San Francisco 3 5° A.M.

Constantinople I 56 P.M.

Stockholm I I2 P.M.

Copenhagen 0 50 P.M.

St. Petersburg 2 I P.M.

Dublin.

II 35 A.M.

Suez 2 IO P.M.

Edinburgh II 47 A.M.

Sydney IO IO 5 P.M.

Madras 5 2I P.M.

Valparaiso. 7 13 Α.Μ.

Madrid II 45 A.M.

Vienna.

I 6 P.M.

Melbourne 9 40 P.M.

Wellington II 40 P.M.

Moscow. 2 30 P.M.

Yokohama. 9 18 P.M.

The Calendar. A calendar is a method of distributing time into certain periods adapted to the purposes of civil life, as hours, days, weeks, months, years, etc.

Europeans, like the ancient Egyptians, commence the civil day at midnight.

Some nations, as the ancient Chaldeans and modern Greeks, chose sunrise as the beginning of the day: others, like the Italians and Bohemians, supposed it to commence at sunset. In the early age of Rome, and even after the foundation of the city, no other divisions of the day were known than sunrise, sunset, and midday, which was marked by the arrival of the sun between the rostra, and a place called Graecostosis, where ambassadors from Greece and other countries used to stand. The Greeks divided the natural day and night into twelve equal parts each, and the hours thus formed were called temporary hours, from their varying in length according to the season of the year. The Week is a period of seven days, having no reference whatever to the celestial motions; hence its unalterable uniformity, although it did not enter into the

Greek calendar, and was not introduced at Rome till after the reign of Theodosius, yet it has been employed from time immemorial in almost all Eastern countries. In the Egyptian astronomy the order of the planets is Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, and the Moon. The day being divided into twenty-four hours, each hour was consecrated to a particular planet, namely: one to Saturn, the following to Jupiter, the third to Saturn, and so on, and the day received the name of the planet which presided over its first hour. If then the first hour was consecrated to Saturn, the planet would have the eighth, the fifteenth, and the twenty-second hour, the twenty-third would fall to Jupiter, the twenty-fourth to Mars, and the twenty-fifth, the first of the second day, would belong to the Sun. In like manner the first of the third day would fall to the Moon, the first of the fourth day to Mars, of the fifth to Mercury, the sixth to Jupiter, and the seventh to Venus. The cycle being completed, the first of the eighth would return to Saturn, and the others succeed in the same order. According to Dio Cassius, the Egyptian week commenced with Saturday. In their flight from Egypt, the Jews from their hatred to their ancient oppressors, made Saturday the last day of the week. The English names were derived from the Saxons. The ancient Saxons had borrowed the week from some Eastern nation, and substituted the names of their own divinities for those of the gods of Greece.

Latin.

Dies Solis, Sunday, English.

Saxon.

Sun's Day, Latin.

Dies Jovis, English.

Saxon.

Thursday, Thor's Day.

Lunæ, Monday, Moon's Day, " Veneris, Friday, Friga's Day, " Martis, " Tuesday, Mercurii, Wednesday, Woden's Day, Tuisco's Day, " Saturni, Saturday, Saturn's Day.