Brinton.] ZU4: [-jan. 2, 



of Mexico. The yard was the vara de Burgos^ which had been 

 ordered to be adopted throughout the colony by an ordinance of 

 the viceroy Antonio de Mendoza. This vara was in length 0.838 

 metre, and as according to the chronicler the native measure was 

 just three times this (^411^ X 3 = 1234^, and 326 X 3 = 978), it 

 must have been 2.514 metre. This 'is equal in our measure to 

 9.842 feet, or, say, nine feet ten inches. 



This would make the actacatl identical with those long-named 

 ten-foot measures, which, as I have shown, were multiples of the 

 length of the foot, as is proved by an analysis of their compon- 

 ent words. 



This result is as interesting as it is new, as it demonstrates 

 that the metrical unit of ancient Mexico was the same as that of 

 ancient Rome — the length of the foot-print. 



Some testimony of another kind may be brought to illustrate 

 this point. 



In 1864, the Mexican government appointed a commission to 

 survey the celebrated ruins of Teotihuacan, under the care of 

 Don Ramon Almaraz, At the suggestion of Senor Orozco this 

 able engineer ran a number of lines of construction to determine 

 what had been the metrical standard of the builders. His de- 

 cision was that it was "about" met. 0.8, or, sa}^ 31^ inches.* 

 This is very close to an even third of the octacatl, and would thus 

 be a common division of lengths laid off by it. 



I may here turn aside from my immediate topic to compare 

 these metrical standards with that of the Mound-Builders of the 

 Ohio valley. 



In the American Antiquarian, April, 1881, Prof. W. J. Mc- 

 Gee applied Mr. Petrie's arithmetical system of " inductive 

 metrology " to a large number of measurements of mounds and 

 earth-works in Iowa, with the result of ascertaining a common 

 standard of 25.716 inches. 



In 1883, Col. Charles Whittlesey, of Cleveland, anal3'zed 

 eighty-seven measurements of Ohio earth-works by the method 

 of even divisors and concluded that thirty inches was about the 



• Memoria de los n-abajos ejecutadox por la common scientifica de Pachuca en el oilo 

 de 1861, p. 357, quoted by Orozco. Almaraz's words are not at all precise: "la 

 unldad lineal, con pequefias modificaciones, debi6 ser oosa de 0, m 8, 6 cuatro 

 palmos prdximamente." 



