Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/561

Rh mouth. There are seven days between the setting in of a disease and the critical day. There are seven climates in the habitable earth.

"Eight is the first cube number, and there are also eight beatitudes.

"Nine is the second square number, and there are also nine orders of angels and the kirie eleison is sung nine times in the mass.

"Ten, according to some, is a perfect number, not in its composition like six, but because it contains inclosed in itself all the simple numbers and all the properties, as of even and odd, perfect and imperfect, and it is the beginning of all numbers composed of tens, and also for the foundation of our law. God gave to Moses the ten commandments of the law, and ordered men to give to God the tithe, which is one tenth of his gain or his labor.

"Eleven is the first compound odd number.

"Twelve is a number of great pre-eminence and utility. And, although it is an excessively imperfect number, it is nevertheless of great utility. For it can, first, be divided into more parts than any number below it. For it can be evenly divided by 6, which is its $1/undefined$; by 4, which is its $1/undefined$; by 3, which is its $1/undefined$; and by 2, which is its $1/undefined$. And because the blessed Redeemer Jesus Christ wished to observe the said number in choosing twelve apostles to found and form the Holy Catholic Faith. Who for the foundation of the same composed the twelve articles of the faith. And in imitation of them the lords of the cathedral churches constitute twelve perpetuals to listen continually to the service of God the Creator; twelve choralists to sing the hymns of God and the saints. Likewise, on account of the convenience of this number, the good governors of cities commonly choose twelve counselors to attend to the regulation of the public good. So the astrological philosophers of the ancient times, experimenting and considering the celestial natures and influences, divided the whole sky into twelve equal parts which were called the twelve signs. And they attributed to each a peculiar influence by subtile commixtion, and established twelve months in the year for greater convenience. And this is enough of the property of the numbers in particular.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique.



H, but you must see Don Felipe—he knows all about fishes!" is the first advice which the naturalist receives when he begins to make collections of fishes in the markets of Havana. The writer once had occasion to make such a collection, and he found soon that, among fishermen and fish-mongers, the phrase "amigo de Don Felipe" was ever a passport to honest dealing and to a real desire to aid him in 