dawn. At another level there is the cycle of the seasons, governed by the sun—usually directly, but sometimes indirectly, as with the flooding of the Nile or with the monsoons. But these two cycles, the day and the year, do not suffice for the ordering of social and economic life. One is too brief, and the other too long. Hence the necessity for the intermediate cycles we usually call weeks and months. From the three-day week of the Basques, passing through the ten-day week of