The first mention of time which we have is found in the Book of Genesis, where it is written “and the evening and the morning were the first day.” That statement gives a “measure” which was sufficient for the purpose intended, but there is nothing very accurate in it. If it had said “the darkness and the light” were the first day, it would have been just as accurate. The people who lived in those far-off days had no special occasion to know or to care what time it was. We may suppose that they were hungry when they waked at sunrise, and if they had no food “left over” from the previous day’s supply they would have to hustle and find some, and if possible secure a little surplus beyond that day’s needs, and so they would work, or hunt, until the “evening” came and the sun disappeared. When a man was tired, and the sun was hot, he sat down under a tree for shelter and rest. As he sat under the tree and looked about him he could not fail to notice that upon the ground was a shadow of the tree under which he sat. And as he was tired and warm he lay down and fell asleep, and when he woke, he again saw the shadow, but in another place. He noticed that the same thing occurred every day. He saw also that in the morning the shadow was stretched out in one direction, and that in the evening it lay in exactly the opposite direction, and that every day it moved very nearly the same, so he put a mark on the ground about where the shadow first appeared, and another mark at the place where it disappeared. Then one day he stuck his staff in the ground about half-way between the places of the morning and the evening shadows, which served as a noon mark. As the staff cast a shadow as readily as did the tree, the man found that it was really a better index of time than was the tree shadow, for it was much smaller and more clearly defined, and so he put up a straight stick in the ground near the hut in which he lived, and as the ground was level and smooth he drove a lot of little stakes along the daily path of the shadow, and in that way divided the day into a number of small parts. That was a crude “sun dial.” (The Bible tells of the sun dial in the thirty-eighth chapter of Isaiah.) But there was nothing very accurate in the sun dial. Several hundred years later the days were divided into sections which were called “hours,” such as the “sixth hour” (noon), the “ninth hour” (three o’clock), the “eleventh hour” (five o’clock), etc. There was, however, nothing very accurate in those expressions, which simply indicate that there were recognized divisions of time, but with no suggestions as to the means used to determine their limits or boundaries. It is recorded of Alfred the Great, who lived in the ninth century, A. D., that he was very methodical in his employment of time, and in order to insure a careful attention to his religious duties as well as his kingly duties, he divided the day into three parts, giving