March i6, 191 6] 



NATURE 



71 



I Greek foot 

 1 5 Greek ft. = i cubit 



= I2*i 5 English inches 

 = 18225 „ „ 

 feet 



10 „ 1, =1 reed = 10125 



10 reeds = i plethron =101 25 „ „ 



6plethra =istadion =60750 „ „ 



10 stadia =1 geographical mile = 607 5 „ „ 



There was another foot used in Greece, of which 

 Petrie gives a number of Instances, derived from old 

 buildings, varying from 11-4^ to 11-74, ^vith a mean 

 value of 1 160 English inches. This would appear to 

 be a foot of 16 digits, used for building and manufac- 

 tures, but not connected with measures of distance. 



The Roman system of measures was based on the 



Greek, but while adopting the stadion — called by them 



stadium — as the fundamental measure of distance, they 



used the shorter Greek foot, and introduced another 



measure, the double pace. They also made the land 



mile to consist of 8 instead of 10 stadia, while retaining- 



the geographical mile of 10 stadia for use at sea. 



As they had an affection for a duodecimal svstem of 



calculation, they also divided the foot into 12 inches, 



in addition to the old division into 16 digits. The 



Roman scale, which showed considerable ingenuity in 



assimilating a number of different measures which had 



no real relationship to one another, appears to have 



been as follows : — 



I digit 



I inch 



4 digits or 



3 inches = i palm 



4 palms = I foot 

 6 ,. =1 cubit 



5 feet = I pace 

 125 paces =1 stadion 



8 stadia = i land mile 

 10 .. = I geographical, or 



sea mile = 6075 ?• »> 



^The above remarks deal with the measures of 

 distance used by the principal nations of antiquity up 

 to and including the geographical mile, upon which 

 they seem to have been based, but in addition to these 

 there are certain longer measures of distance which 

 must be referred to, such as the parasang, the 

 schoenos. and the league. The fundamental idea of 

 these measures was that they represented the distance 

 which could be marched in a given time, such as one 

 hour, and as the rate of marching naturally varied 

 with the nature of the country-, it was not easy to have 

 a fixed length, and when there was made a theoretical 

 unit it did not always agree with the actual distance. 



An important application of measures of distance 

 from the earliest times was for the calculation of areas 

 of land, but there is considerable doubt as to what 

 was the original unit, and whether this was a square, 

 or in the form of a rectangle one stadium in length 

 and one-tenth of a stadium in width. In the latter 

 case there would have been ten measures in a square 

 stadium, and 1000 measures in a square geographical 

 mile, and such a measure would seem quite in accord 

 with the ancient system of measures of distance. Its 

 area would have been 40 x 400 geographical cubits 

 (36x360 Babylonian Royal cubits). There is a very 

 widely distributed type of land measures based on a 

 rectangle of this form, of which the English acre is 

 an mstance. as it measures 44 x 440 English cubits. 

 ^The Egy-ptian unit of land area appears to have 

 been the "set," which was a square having a side of 

 ^ Eg\'ptian Roval cubits. A cubit of land was the 

 I 'Too part of this, and was the area of a rectangle 

 100 cubits. 



In the Greek sA-stem the unit of area was the square 

 ot a plethron or 100 Greek feet, of which there were 

 36 in a square stadion and 3600 in a square geo- 

 : aphical mile. 



The Roman unit of land area, called the " jugerum," 

 was a rectangle, 120 x 240 Roman feet, which was 

 subdivided duodecimally, the uncia of land being- the 

 twelfth part of a jugerum, or the area of a rectangle 

 measuring 10 x 240 Roman feet. 



It will be seen from the above descriptions that from 

 the earliest times the shorter measures of lengtlj were 

 based on the proportions of the human body, and the 

 longer on the geographical mile, and that at some 

 remote period an attempt was made to combine them 

 into a continuous scale, from the digit to the geo- 

 graphical mile. 



The modern measures of the civilised world are, with 

 few exceptions, based on the ancient units, of which 

 they may be regarded as the direct descendants. Of 

 these exceptions the most important are the measures 

 of the metric system, which were designed with the 

 object of breaking away from the records of the past 

 by the adoption of a new geographical mile, equal to 

 54/100 of the true geographical mile. 



The English measures of length are a good example 

 of the modern representatives of the old units, and 

 are worthy of study from this point of view. How the 

 measures originally came to England it is not easy to 

 say, but there can be no doubt that thev were in use 

 before the Roman invasion, having possibly been intro- 

 duced by Phoenician traders, and were afterwards 

 modified by the Romans, the Saxons, the Scandi- 

 navians, and the Normans, each of whom had 

 measures, based on the old units, but altered in course 

 of time. It was not until the thirteenth century that 

 thev were moulded by law into one uniform svstem. 



The English scale, as authorised bv statute, mav 

 be summarised as follows : — 



I inch 

 12 inches =1 foot 



3 feet = I yard 



5i yards = i rod, pole, or perch 



4 perches = i chain 

 10 chains =1 furlong 



8 furlongs = i English statute mile 



Of these units the inch is derived from the Roman 

 s\stem, being one-twelfth of the foot, but the foot, 

 on the other hand, is equal approximatelv to the 

 Greek foot, while the yard, which is simph' a double 

 cubit, comes from the Babylonian system, being- 

 approximately a double geographical cubit. The perch 

 is the English representative of the Babylonian gar. 

 and the furlong occupies a similar place to the stadium, 

 while the mile is composed of eight stadia, apparently 

 in imitation of the division of the Roman mile. For 

 use at sea, however, the . geographical mile, divided 

 into ten stadia, or, as we call them, cable lengths, 

 has been retained, as no other mile can be used for 

 purposes of navigation. 



In order fully to understand the connection between 

 the English measures and the ancient measures of 

 length, it is necessary to write the scale in a somewhat 

 different manner, and to introduce some other units 

 which are no longer used. The revised scale is as 

 follows : — 



I barleycorn 

 3 barleycorns = I inch 



NO. 2420, VOL. 97] 



