306 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



cr-ntury. Under llu' inllueiice of this perennial fountain of error the 

 subject beeaino an arena of confusion. Without we^arying the reader 

 by going over this maze of unsettled opinion it will be sufficient to 

 refer to the pages of Lelewel ; for although, in his work on Pytheas, 

 he distinguishes only tAvo kinds of stades, the 01yini>ic of eight to a mile 

 and the Italic of eiglit and one third to a mile, in his larger work there 

 are bewildering dissertations on the different stades and miles of ancient 

 autlioi-s. We read of very small stadet? 10 or 12| to a miU", of Phile- 

 terian stades 7^ to a mile which later became 7 to a m.ile, of stades 5 to 

 a mile, of Posidonian stades 500 to a degree, of stades of hititude, and 

 of stades 502 ^|^. to a degree. Then we may read of miles of longitude, 

 of Venetian miles 60 to a degree, of miles 80 and 85 to a degree. In 

 one map he finds seven, different valuations of miles — 50, 55, 67, 83, 

 86 and 90 to a degree, and he naively remarks that this inequality of 

 miles to a degree is common to nearly all the maps of the middle ages. 

 Thus the absurdity is plainly apparent of taking these maps as seriously 

 ns if they had been compiled by scientific survey, and of making 

 measures in common and daily use, such as the stade and the mile, 

 shift and vary proportionately to the errors on the early maps and to 

 suit the speculative notions of men groping during 2000 years to dis- 

 cover the true circumference of the earth and the corresponding length 

 of a degree of longitude. These "fancy stades," as D'Avezac called 

 them, are "will o' the wisp" lights to beguile the student of historical 

 geography. 



The researches of Colonel Leake cleared away this fog and his 

 views were sup])orted l)y Uckert, Muller, St. ^Martin and later writers 

 sn that it may be now be considered as established that the stade of the 

 Greek writers was equivalent to 600 Greek feet, equal to 606-75 English 

 feet. From this arises a convenient and very nearly accurate ratio for 

 converting, at sight, the Greek stades into our own familiar nautical 

 miles, as follows : — 



1 Olympic stade = 600-75 English feet. 

 10 " " = (>0<)7-5 " " 



and 



1 nautical mile = <507ô-r> " " 



1 adininilty knot = ()Oh(î-ri " " 



or by Clarke's iiieii.<iireiiient ^ ()<).S7'11 " " 



Therefore 10 Olympic stades = 1 minnle of the equat^ir, 

 and (MX) " " = 1 degree " " 



The Greek and modern standards then, though not absolutely 

 equivalent, are sufhciently so for all pi*actical purposes. The difference 

 between ten Greek stadia and our accepted nautical mile is not greater 

 than th.'ii Im'Ivm'cd iln- nautical mile of customary computation and the 



