corresponds nearly with three o’clock, and so on[63]. This practice is doubtless connected with the common use of a stick in the Indian Archipelago for observations of time, and is by no means primitive. The ancient Athenians seem to have indicated time by measuring off with the foot the length of the shadow cast by their bodies upon the level ground before them as they stood. At all events the length of shadows served to indicate time, cp. Aristophanes, _Ekkles._, 652, “when the staff is ten feet, to go perfumed to dinner”[64]. The gnomon which, according to Herodotus II, 109, the Greeks borrowed from the Babylonians was an upright stick the shadow of which was measured: it was also an important instrument for astronomical observations[65]. Here however we are already at a highly developed stage and know nothing about the origins. The indication of time from the position of the sun is really only satisfactory in the tropics, where the sun always stands very high and the length of its daily course is not exposed to too great variation. Where the sun is much lower in winter than in summer, and the length of the day varies greatly at different times of the year, the method ceases to be practicable. If descriptive expressions of one kind or another are not resorted to, other means must be found. Above all it is important to determine the fixed point which divides the day into two parts, i. e. noon. In the living-room of the houses of the Scanian peasants, which were always built ‘according to the sun’, i. e. facing east and west, there was in the southern window-sill, beside the middle shaft of the frame, a line which was called the ‘noon-line’. When the shadow of the shaft fell parallel with this line it was noon. This device is not exactly primitive, since windows in the room, more particularly in the wall, belong to a quite advanced stage of civilisation. But on the other hand such customs as the determination of noon and other moments of the day from the position of the sun above certain points on the horizon--elevations and hills--are old. In Iceland the divisions of the day were, and still are, determined from the visible course of the heavenly bodies. The people imagined that the sun in the course of a day and a night ran through the eight equal regions of the heavens (_ættir_, sing. _ætt_). The time of day was determined from the position of the sun above the horizon by the selection in every house of certain outstanding points within the range of vision to serve as ‘day-marks’ (_dagsmǫrk_, sing. -_mark_)--where these were lacking, small piles of stones were erected for the purpose--so that when the sun stood above one of these marks a certain time of day was given. The most important times thus determined were _rismál_ or _miðr morgin_ (6 a. m.), _dagmál_ (9 a. m.), _hádegi_ (12 o’clock noon), _míðmundi_ (1.30 p. m.), _nón_ (undoubtedly originally called _undorn_ and also _eykt_, 3 p. m.), _miðr aptann_ (6 p. m.), and _nattmál_ (9 p. m.).