WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 



also called a cornook (by Jonas Moore, canock), and the quarter also 

 a seam.* The ' Pathway,' Mellis, and Moore, &c., mention the water 

 measure of five pecks to a bushel (11 Henry VII., cap. 4.), and 

 always in conjunction with dry measure : it means a dry measure in 

 use at the waterside, and lime, sea-coal, and salt were measured by 

 it. The common dry bushel was called the Winchester bushel ; this 

 name is a remnant of the laws of King Edgar, who ordained that 

 specimens kept at Winchester should be legal standards. 



Old Wine t Measure. The gallon contains 231 cubic inches. Four 

 gills make a pint, 2 pints a quart, 4 quarts a gallon, 18 gallons a 

 rundlet, 314 gallons a barrel, 42 gallons a tierce, 63 gallons a hogs- 

 head, 2 tierces a puncheon, 2 hogsheads a pipe or butt,+ 2 pipes a 

 tun. But the pipes of foreign wine depend more on the measures 

 of their different countries than on the above. The rundlet and 

 barrel are generally omitted, but they are both found in writers 

 of the 16th century. Mellis gives 184 gallons, and the 'Pathway' 

 18 gallons, to the rundlet. Tierce merely means the third part of a 

 pipe, and the puncheon was anciently called the tercian (of a tun). 

 The pottle (of two quarts) formerly existed. The anker of brandy, a 

 foreign measure of comparatively recent introduction into England, 

 is ten gallons. 



Old Ale and Beer Measure. One gallon contains 282 cubic inches. 

 Two pints make a quart, 4 quarts a gallon, 9 gallons a firkin, 2 firkins 

 a kilderkin, 2 kilderkins a barrel, 14 barrel a hogshead, 2 hogsheads 

 a butt, 2 butts a tun. Up to the year 1803, when the two measures 

 were assimilated by statute, this was the beer measure, and the 

 ale measure only differed from it in that 8 gallons made a firkin. 

 Nothing above a barrel is mentioned in the oldest tables, and the 

 pottle (two quarts) is introduced. Two tuns were sometimes called 

 a last. 



Imperial Measure. This measure supersedes the old corn, wine, 

 and beer measures. The gallon contains 277'274 cubic inches, and 

 is 10 pounds averdnpoia of water. Four gills are a pint, 2 pints a 

 quart, 4 quarts a gallon, 2 gallons a peck, 4 pecks a bushel, 8 bushels 

 a quarter, 5 quarters a load. Of these the gill and load are not 

 named in the statute, but are derived from common usage. When 

 heaped measure was allowed, 3 bushels made a sack, and 12 sacks a 

 chaldron. This heaped measure was abolished || by 4 & 5 Will. IV., 

 c. 49, and the abolition was re-enacted by 5 & 6 Will IV., c. 63, which 

 repealed the former. These acts leave the higher measures of wine, 

 &c., to custom, considering them apparently as merely names of casks, 

 which in fact they are, and leaving them to be gauged in gallons. It 

 must be remembered that in former times any usual vessel which was 

 generally made of one size came in time to the dignity of a place 

 among the national measures. 



Wool Meatare. Seven pounds make a clove, 2 cloves a stone, 2 

 stones a tod, 64 tods a wey, 2 weys a sack, 12 sacks a last. The 

 ' Pathway ' points out the etymology of the word cloves : it calls them 

 ' claret or nail." It is to be observed here that a sack is 13 tods, 

 and a tod 28 pounds, no that the sack is 364 pounds. Jeake says this 

 was arranged (31 Edward III., cap. 8) according to the lunar year of 

 13 months of 28 days each. The reason, no doubt, was, that the mul- 

 titudes of whose occupation the spinning of wool formed a part might 

 instantly be able to calculate the supply for the year or month from 

 the amount of the day's work ; a pound a day being a tod a month and 

 a sack a year. But it would seem as if Sundays and holidays had to be 

 made up on other days. 



Tale or Beckoning. If we were to collect every mode of counting, 

 * this would be the largest head of all. The dozen, the gross of 12 dozen, 

 and the score, are the only denominations not immediately contained 

 in the common system of numeration, which are universally received ; 

 and in all cases, by a dozen, a score, a hundred, a thousand, &c., were 

 signified different numbers, composed of the arithmetical dozen, score, 

 Ac., together with the allowances usually made upon taking quantities 

 of different goods. The " baker's dozen," for instance, which has passed 

 into a proverb, arose from its being usual in many places to give 13 

 penny loaves for a shilling. The increased dozen, hundred, Ac., were 

 sometimes called the long dozen, long hundred, &c. ; and this phrase is 

 sometimes heard in our own day, when a dear price is called a " long 

 price." The 12 dozen was formerly called the small gross, and 12 

 small gross made the great gross. The hundred was more frequently "i 



This word has been preserved a a measure of glow. 



t For wine and spirits, elder, mead, oil, honey, vinegar. 



J According to Mellis, the butt was a name applied only to half-tuns of 

 malmsey or sack 



The reader would look In rain for any notice of this in books of arithmetic. 

 Perhaps the statute was not attended to. The distinction of the ale and beer 

 firkin Is said by Ward to hare existed only in London, an average flrkin of 

 8j gallons having been enacted for all other parts of England by the statute of 

 Excise of 1889. But it doe not follow, in matters of weight and measure, 

 that any change was actually produced merely because there was an Act of 

 Parliament for it. 



[| It was abolished in Scotland two centuries ago, and re-enacted by neglect 

 in the act of 1823. But the re-enactment did not obtain for it the slightest 

 introduction, according to H'Culloch. 



H According to the old adage, the hundred 



" Fire score of men, money, and pins, 

 Six score of alt other things." 



120 than 100, the thousand generally ten hundred. Ten thousand was 

 frequently called a last ; and it is to be observed that the word last 

 was frequently (almost usually) applied to the highest measure of oue 

 given kind. The sAooi was always 60 ; the dicar, or dicker, always 10, 

 TS the name imports. In measuring paper (1594), the quire was 25 

 sheets, the ream 20 quires, and the bale 10 reams. By 1650 the prac- 

 tice of reckoning 24 sheets to the quire (now universal) had been intro- 

 duced as to some sorts of paper. The memory may be assisted by the 

 phrase that a quire is the shilling of a ream, and a sheet is its halfpenny. 

 Tale-fish, as those were called which were allowed to be sold by tale, 

 were (22 Edw. IV., cap. 2) such as measured from the bone of the fin 

 to the third joint of the tail 16 inches at least. 



It is impossible for us to describe the various weights, measures, &c., 

 which have found their way into use in the various counties. Dr. 

 Young collected a list, which is printed in the second Report of the 

 Commissioners on Weights and Measures (1820), to which we must 

 refer for the various local barrels, bushels, hundreds, &c., and also for 

 the awm, bag, bale, basket, bat, bay, beatment, billet, bind, bing, boll, 

 bolt, bolting, bottle, bout, box, bucket, bunch, bundle, burden, cabot, 

 cade, canter, caroteel, carriage, cart, cartload, case, cast, cheef, chest, 

 clue, cord, corf, cran, cranock, cut, cyvar, cyvelin, daugh, dish, dole, 

 drop, dupper, erw, faggot, fall, fan, flask, fodder, fotmal, frazil, garb, 

 gaun, glean, gunny, gwaith-gwr, hank, head, heap, hide, hobed, 

 hoop, hutch, hyle, incast, ingrain, jar, jug, keel, kemple, kenning, 

 kibin, kishon, kiver, knot, lay, leap, lispound, llath, llathen gyvelin, 

 llestraid, lug, maen, maise, mark, mast, math, measure, meer, meiliaid, 

 merk, mount, mug, oxland, pack, packet, paladr, pared, peccaid, peget, 

 piece, pig, plough land, pocket, poke, pot, pwys, quintal, reel, rees, 

 rhaw, ridge, role, rope, roul, sack, saume, sester, sieve, skain, skin, 

 skron, sleek, spindle, square, stacca, stack, staff, stang, stick, stimpart, 

 stock, stored, sum, table, talsbide, tankard, teal, thrave, thread, threave, 

 timber, topston, truss, tub, tunnell, vergde, vragina, waggon-load, wain, 

 warp, web, weight, and windle. 



The old Scottish measures vary even more in the different counties 

 than the English. The standard foot was 12-0194 English inches, 

 3 feet ] inch make an ell, 6 ells a fall, 40 falls a furlong, and 8 furlongs 

 a mile (19764 yards). Again, 40 square falls make a rood, and 4 roods 

 an acre. Hence the measures of length and surface are so connected 

 that the Scottish land-chain is the 80th part of a mile, and its square 

 the 10th part of an acre. 



In Scotland, the English troy and averdupois weight obtained an 

 early introduction, and were used with the Scottish troy weight, called 

 also Dutch weight, and with the tron weight. The Dutch weight is as 

 follows : A drop is 29722 English troy grains, 16 drops are an ounce, 

 16 ounces a pound (7608'95 grains), and 16 pounds a stone. This pound 

 coincides with the old English pound already mentioned, very nearly. 

 In the tron weight the divisions are as before ; but the drop is 37'588 

 English troy grains, and the pound 9622'67 of the same. 



The Scottish liquid gallon was 833'6272 English cubic inches. Four 

 gills made a mutchkin, 2 mutchkins a chopiu, 2 chopins a pint, and 

 8 pints a gallon. The Scottish pint was therefore 3 English pints very 

 nearly. They had only one liquid measure, but they had two dry 

 measures ; the first for wheat, peas, beans, &c. ; the second for barley 

 and oats. In the first the peck contained 553'581 English cubic 

 inches. Four lippies made a peck, 4 pecks a firlot, 4 firlots a boll, and 

 16 bolls a chalder. The second measure was divided in the same way, 

 but the peck was 807'576 English cubic inches.* 



On the Irish measures, previous to the introduction of the imperial 

 system, there is nothing to remark, except that the coal bushel con- 

 tained 10 English corn gallons, the lime bushel 8, the maltt gallon 

 2724, cubic inches, and the liquid gallon 217'6 cubic inches. The pole 

 was 7 yards, which made the mile equal to an English mile and three- 

 elevenths, and the acre greater than the English acre in the proportion 

 of 121 to 196. 



We have not space to enter into the ancient history of French 

 measures, for which the reader! may consult Paucton's ' Metrologie,' 



And the real hundred, ten tens, was the little hundred ; as in the old rhyme 

 " One's none, 

 Two's some, 

 Three's a many, 

 Four's a penny, 

 Five's a little hundred " [score understood], 



* Our authority for the Scottish measures is 'Tables for converting the 

 weights and measures hitherto in use in Great Britain into those of the Imperial 

 Standards, &c., also abstracts of the jury verdicts throughout Scotland,' &c., by 

 George Buchanan, Civil Engineer, Edinburgh, 1829. This work is as complete 

 as a work can be : the reader may compare it with ' A proposal for the 

 Uniformity of Weights and Measures in Scotland,' &c., second edition, Edin- 

 burgh, 1789. 



t This was the old Winchester gallon, already mentioned. 



{ On this work, that of Koine de L'Isle (1789) and the anonymous 'Metro- 

 logies Constltutionelles et Primitives' (1801), it may be observed that they are 

 all vitiated by the assumption that a very accurate knowledge of the earth's 

 diameter anciently existed, from which all weights and measures, even those 

 anterior to Greek and Romnn times, were derived. Greaves had led the way 

 by finding out English weights nnd measures from the Egyptian pyramid. All 

 particular pursuits have their peculiarities : that of the metrologists has been 

 to imagine some grand and mysterious connection lietwcen existing measures 



