Ml I.K. 



llHiiittnlrns entirely to the regulation of the 

 > standards ; while in the 85th yew of that queen an act was 

 which (perhaps undeaignedly un the pert of iU framen) ha* 

 the mile at its present length. This statute, though it is 

 always appealed to a* if made for the purpose of settling the quce- 

 Uon, yet in fact doee nothing more than incidentally define a mile 

 for a particular purpose. Person* are forbidden to build within 

 three mita of London, and the mile u to be 8 furlongs of 40 perches 

 of 1<4 feet each. But whether this mile had become common, and 

 only wanted the sanction of law, whether it was a new measure 

 intended to be generally enforced, or whether it was meant as the 

 measure for the particular purpose indicated, and for that purpose 

 only, cannot be gathered, at least from the recital in the Statute* 

 at Urge. It will however subsequently appear that we are not with- 

 out i"nvfO""E like a probable account of the derivation of the 

 measure ; and whatever doubt may rest upon the meaning of the 

 statute, it w*s considered by an authority of the reign of James I. 

 (Cowell) as a general declaration of the length of the mile. Pre- 

 rioualy however to the act of Elizabeth it may be doubted whether 

 any uniform mile was in existence. Host unquestionably many, per- 

 hap most, writers made use of a mile of 5000 feet, probably not being 

 aware of the English foot having become longer than the Roman, and 

 intending to use the Roman mile. (See the citations in LEAGUE.) Thus, 

 Koger Bacon, in his general description of the earth, follows (except as 

 hereinafter mentioned) the Latin writers, and uses their mile as a 

 matter of course, without the least warning of his being aware that he 

 was using a measure different from the popular one of his time. 

 Accordingly, in a writer on any mathematical or cosmographical topic 

 the mile may be presumed to have 5000 feet. If however the subject 

 had any connection with astronomy, and if Arabian writers were 

 referred to, it was not unusual to use the Arabian mile of 2000 yards 

 (according to Roger Bacon's estimation, Jebb, p. 141). 



If, as we believe we shall presently show, a longer mile were in 

 popular tisc, it may be doubted whether the authors above alluded to 

 were aware of the difference. They certainly did not perpetuate 

 such knowledge; for Dr. Bernard, the most profound of English 

 metrologists, found the mile of 5000 feet sufficiently common in old 

 writings to induce him to give it a name, and call it the English 

 geometrical mile, meaning, we suppose, that principally used in mathe- 

 matical writings; but he does not give the least hint that any 

 other mile, except this geometrical mile and the statute mile, was ever 

 in existence. Nor does his predecessor Greavea, when he remarks 

 that great differences have been observed between measured and 

 statute miles, hint at such discordances being derived from the remains 

 of any old and different measure, or at any acknowledged measure 

 different from the statute mile. This mile of 5000 feet continued in 

 use among seamen, whose (measures depend more upon writers on 

 navigation than on acts of parliament, until the earth's dimensions 

 became better known. A very old notion as to the earth's magnitude 

 gave 60, or at most 624, Roman miles to the degree. The sea mile 

 tallied with that of writers on shore, until the measures of Picard, &c., 

 became well known ; but the sixtieth part of a degree of latitude is so 

 convenient a standard measure for the sailor, that under the name of a 

 nautical or geographical mile it has lengthenened with the common 

 estimation of the degree of latitude. Thus, in the time of Gunter 

 we find the degree described as 60 miles of 5000 feet each ; though he 

 certainly says (On tke Cma-Staffc, b. xi., cap. 6), that by comparison of 

 observation*,* he thinks 352,000 feet nearer the truth. Even almost 

 as late as the Revolution some common works written for landsmen 

 describe the sea league an three Italian miles, which answers nearly to 

 15,000 feet. By the time of Dr. Bernard however we find the sea mile 

 described as coinciding with the statute mile ( De Mem. et Pond., p. 

 '.'"2 ) ; but this is in a work of science and authority : and Oughtred 

 (before the date of Bernard's book) says that it is " taken (or rather 

 mistaken) that 60 statute miles make a degree." It is most likely that 

 the sea league would in the first instance be taken from the com- 

 mon league ; and certainly 15,000 feet, or 2'84 statute miles, is almost 

 the same as the length which different deductions will give for the old 

 land league. 



We now proceed to the mam question, the length of the old English 

 mile : premising that the utmost we can attempt is a clear proof that 

 the old popular mile differed considerably from the modern mile. The 

 gradual changes of this old mile ( which the general history of iti- 

 nerary measures may lead us to suspect) must be traced out by 

 closer investigation of antiquarian authorities than mathematicians 

 have been wont to make, and better estimation of their relative values 

 in a mathematical point of view than antiquaries have hitherto been 

 capable of making. 



There U a tradition among antiquaries (Sir H. Ellis. ' Preface to 

 DoUMKlay ') that this old mile was somewhere about a statute mile 

 and a-half. This tradition is not to be relied on ; for though in all 

 probability it agrees with the truth, yet it may have arisen from 

 another circumstance. We have more than once heard it proved by 

 toe assertion that, even within the memory of man, distances were 

 measured in the remote part* of the country by a longer than the 



This of eoom n*n to the action of Siwll, which f.re S}S.38* feet 

 l..f. !!. 



MILK, 



619 



statute mile ; for instance, that York was said to be 150 miles from 

 London, while it is really more than 199 statute miles. This is per- 

 fectly true ; but the reason is perhaps different from that given, as the 

 following account will show : 



The first actual measurement of the roads in England, in statute 

 miles, was made by John Ogilby, cosmographer to Charles II.. and was 

 published by him in 1675, under the title of ' Britannia,' with copious 

 descriptions, and 100 copper-plates of the roads, in a huge folio 

 volume : the instrument used was called by him a vhtel-dimetuarator, 

 by others, a tniy-tcitrr, and answers entirely to the perambulator now 

 in use. Various editions of this work were published, of which we 

 have seen three, and D'Anvillo mentions a fourth. It is worth noting 

 that this measurement, an compared with older ones, soon came into 

 general use : thus in a little work for men of business, called ' The 

 Complete Tradesman, or Exact Dealer's Daily Companion,' London, 

 1684, we find a list of Ogilby's distances from town to town, compared 

 with those formerly adopted. The latter were called by Ogilby com- 

 .puled miles, and the meaning of this word might be doubted, but it is 

 proved to mean miles in common use by previous publications. Thus 

 in Samuel Norland's ' Description and Use of Two Arithmetic Instru- 

 ments,' &c., 1673 (or two years before Ogilby's. publication), we find the 

 distances called " computed " by Ogilby set down as the (supposed) 

 real distances. D'Anville appears to have seen an edition of Ogiloy (of 

 which there is one at least) in which the word compuietl is always 

 contracted into com. This he supposed to mean common, and the 

 whole of his chapter on English itinerary measures (' Measures ItiniS- 

 raires," cap. x.) must in consequence be read cautiously, as he 

 assumes to be indisputable that there was a common mile in use 

 at the Revolution, which was about a quarter longer than the 

 statute mile. But on the authority of the silence of Bernard and 

 Greaves above referred to, we must remain of a different opinion, 

 and must suppose that the computed miles preserved by Ogilby had 

 been intended to represent the number of statute miles, but erro- 

 neously given. 



What then may these computed miles mean, which had served tin- 

 common purpose in the estimation of distances ? The word computed 

 never meant reputed, but was always applied to a result of reckoning 

 of some kind or other. Ogilby says, " Whence these computations 

 arose is altogether uncertain ; the nearest conjecture is, that they seem 

 to exclude the whole length of the towns, and to be the distance from 

 the end of one town to the beginning of the next, not regarding the 

 fractional parts of a mile, but taking the lesser integer." The com- 

 puted miles always give a smaller figure than the measured ones, or 

 the same, never a greater; and a little examination will render it 

 difficult to suppose that the preceding explanation can be the true one. 

 For independently of its having been the known practice to measure 

 the roads from a conspicuous part of every town, the preceding will 

 not explain differences of four, five, and even seven miles in a stage of 

 less than thirty ; neither will it explain long stages being often of the 

 same number of computed as of measured miles. Our own conviction 

 is that the computed miles are nothing more than distances measured 

 on a map in a straight line from town to town, which differ from those 

 measured on the roads more or less, according to the deviations and 

 curvatures of the roods. Should this opinion be correct, we might 

 expect beforehand, first, that the roads in the neighbourhood of 

 the metropolis would appear more direct than the general average ; 

 secondly, that the principal roads would show indications of being more 

 straight than the ; luced from all classes, and from cross as 



well as direct roads. Both these things appear in the general results, 

 and we can clear ourselves of the suspicion of bias in our selection of 

 instances by throwing that task on others. In the first place the roads 

 near London agree so much better in the computation, so called, and 

 the measurement, that both Ogilby and D'Anville notice the circum- 

 stance, and conclude that a shorter mile was in use in the neighbour- 

 hood of the great city. We find on examination that such is the case 

 with most of the twenty-mile distances about London, which yield 

 about 120 measured miles for 100 computed miles ; and this happens 

 particularly with those routes which come earliest in Ogilby's work ; 

 but 120 would have been increased almost up to the general average 

 by taking twenty miles on every road out of London. 



Secondly, in the ' Exact Dealer's Daily Companion,' already quoted, 

 there is a selection of the roads to which most importance was attached, 

 upon the whole of which 3953 computed miles answer to 5020 mea- 

 sured miles, or 100 computed miles give 127 measured miles. Accord- 

 ing to D'Anville, Ogilby s whole work gives 7679J measured miles of 

 rood, and 5765 computed, so that 100 computed miles make 133 

 measured miles. Hence the remaining 2659 measured miles give 1812 

 computed miles; or, off the principal roads, 100 computed miles give 

 147 measured miles. These results place, in such large numbers of 

 miles, insuperable difficulties in the way of any explanation which 

 should equally apply to the greater and lesser roads; and it seems 

 to us that there remains only the hypothesis that the computed 

 miles were map-measured distances, and that the larger and more 

 important roads were straightor than the rest. If our hypothesis be 

 correct, these computed miles should represent distances on an 

 rect map, which in fact they do. We found them agree somewhat 

 better with the county maps in old editions of Camden's ' Britannia 

 than with our modern maps. And long after this article was written, 



