808 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Tlic expression sUilitlc tuile suirgests the existence of nn older cus- 

 tomary mile hut, while the shorter measures are often mentioned in the 

 statutes of tlie early parliaments, they make no references to miles, nor 

 do they define a mile in any way. Our slat ale tnih first mnde its appear- 

 ance in 3") Kli/,. cap. vi, a statute making certain regulations concern- 

 ing huilding houses within three miles of London. Incidentally to its 

 object land, as if some necessity existed for the definition, the mile in- 

 tended is said to consist of eight furlongs. The mile of 5000 feet con- 

 tains only T| furlongs, 3 perches and 2 palms ; but the new mile is 

 divisible into 8 furlongs, into 320 perches, poles or rods, and into 1760 

 yards ; which native Knglish mciisures, while they form convenient 

 divisors of the statute mile of r»2H0 feet, cannot l)e hannonized with the 

 Honmn mile of 5000 feet. 



If, then, the Roman mile persisted in Engband down to the last 

 year of the reign of Elizabeth, with only the slight modification above 

 noted, there is little cause for wonder that it should have persisted in 

 its integrity in the countries round the Mediterranean where the 

 Komance languages are spoken ; and these were the countries wherein 

 the great navigators were ])orn and from which issued the expeditions 

 of early discovery to the East and West Indies. Cabot and Verazzïino 

 were Italian.s, in the service of England and France respectively, and 

 their voyages were the foundations of the claims of these nations in 

 North America. The earliest literature of marine adventure is in Span- 

 ish, Portuguese, Italian and Latin, and the integer of distance is, 

 throughout, the lioman mile known 'as the Italian mile and its multiple 

 the Italian league — the marine league of the Mediterranean. 



The student of the early narratives meets continually with the 

 league as a measure common to all. Whether it be Columbus, Vespucci, 

 Magellan, Cabot, Diaz, De Gama, Galvano, Cartier, Ramusio or Oviedo, 

 it is always tlie marine league in which their distances are calculated 

 and Hakluyt in his tmnslations carried them over without explanation, 

 qualification or change. Sometimes we meet with miles, but they are 

 the Italian or Roman miles. I am leaving out of the question the 

 Swiss, Danish and German miles and leagues, because these nations 

 took no part in early discovery and did not fall under the Roman power; 

 but among the great maritime nations of Europe during the period 

 under review, the marine league was a standard as universal as was the 

 stade in Greek civilization and Greek geography. 



The word league (Low Latin leucà and leuga) is Celtic and signifies 

 a stone, in some Celtic tongues a flat stone, and was probably a road 

 mark. It was a measure used in Celtic Gaul in the time of Ammianus 

 Mancllinns and seems to have been originally L500 passus in length. 



