72 



NATURE 



[March i6, 191 6 



The English inch is equal in length to 3 barley- 

 corns set end to end. The barleycorn, as a measure, 

 is forgotten, but on a shoemaker's tape the sizes of 

 3x)ots and shoes increase by a barleycorn, or 5 inch, 

 for every size. For example : size No. 8 of a man's 

 boot measures 11 inches; size No. 9, 11^ inches; size 

 No. 10, \\\ inches, and so on. One would have 

 thought that the sizes would increase by one quarter 

 •of an inch at a time, but the barleycorn has held its 

 place to the present day. 



ITie palm, which was originally composed of 4 

 -digits or finger breadths, and, since the time of the 

 Romans, ,of 3 inches or thumb breadths, is no longer 

 used in England, and its place has to a certain extent 

 been taken by a measure called the hand, composed 

 -of 4 inches and employed in measuring the height of 

 horses. 



Prior to the thirteenth century, the length of the 

 foot in England was uncertain ; but, b}- the ordinance 

 known as the Statute for Measuring Land, enacted in 

 the reign of King Henry III., the relations of the inch, 

 the foot, and the cubit to one another were definitely 

 fixed, and have never since been altered. The cubit 

 -of this statute is the double cubit, afterwards called 

 the j'ard. A translation of the Latin words of the 

 statute, describing the different measures, is as 

 follows : — 



" It is ordained that 3 grains of barlev, drv and 

 round, make an inch; 12 inches make a foot; 3 feet 

 make a cubit ; 5^ cubits make a perch ; 40 perches in 

 length and 4 perches in breadth make an acre. 



"And it is to be remembered that the iron cubit of 

 our Lord the King contains 3 feet and no more; and 

 the foot must contain 12 inches, measured by the 

 correct measure of this kind of cubit ; that is to say, 

 one thirty-sixth part of the said cubit makes one inch, 

 neither more nor less. And 5^ cubits, or 16^ feet, 

 make one' perch, in accordance with the above- 

 described iron cubit of our Lord the King." 



It is interesting that, in this statute, the double 

 cubit, thus accurately described, should have been 

 called the cubit of the King, just as the longer cubits 

 of Babylon and of Egypt were called Roval cubits to 

 distinguish them from the shorter cubits of those 

 countries. In the Latin original of the ordinance the 

 word used is "ulna," the usual word for cubit. The 

 word "yard," to signify the English double cubit, 

 occurs for the first time in the laws of England in 

 a statute of 1483, which is written in French. 



The two measures, the acre's breadth, afterwards 

 called the chain, and the acre's length or furlong, 

 have also been used from a very early period. The 

 former is equal to 44 single cubits, 22 yards, or 66 

 English feet, while the latter is exactly ten times this, 

 440 cubits, 220 yards, or 660 feet. The furlong is the 

 modern representative in our system of the ancient 

 stadium, which had a length of 600 Greek feet, or 

 607*5 English feet, but the reason for its being longer 

 than the stadium has, so far as I know, not been 

 satisfactorily explained. But the change mav have 

 been due to the fact that other measures of distance 

 were in use in England, prior to the present statute 

 mile, which varied in different parts of the countrv, 

 and the mean of these was approximately equal to the 

 Gallic league of 12 stadia or 7,290 English feet. One- 

 eleventh of thi'^. 663 English feet, is approximately 

 equal to the English furlong, and eight of these 

 measures, following" the Roman system, were com- 

 bined t:> form the English statute mile. 



But whether this is the origin or not, there appears 

 little doubt that the mile, f'-rlone. and chain, or 

 acre's breadth, were in use in England in Anglo-Saxon 

 times, as there is a law of King Athelstane, who 

 reigned a.d. 925-940, in which it is enacted : — 



NO. 2420, VOL. 97] 



"Thus far shall be the King's grith from his burgh 

 gate where he is dwelling, on its four sides ; that is 

 three miles, and three furlongs, and three acres' 

 breadths, and nine feet, and nine palms, and nine 

 barleycorns." 



The length of the measure called the King's grith, 

 or King's peace, was the distance from his house 

 within which peace was to be maintained, and it is 

 evident that in this law an attempt was made to 

 express the distance in terms of ordinary measures. 



The terms acre's length and rood are no longer 

 used, and this measure is now known as the furlong, 

 while the acre's breadth has been called the chain 

 since the beginning of the seventeenth century, when 

 it was divided into 100 links instead of 66 feet. The 

 chain, which was the invention of Prof. Gunter, has 

 proved very convenient for the measurement of land 

 acres, and is now always used. 



Since the introduction of the chain, the perch or rod 

 has been less employed in connection with land 

 measures, but is still used by builders for the measure- 

 ment of brickwork. The common English stock brick 

 is half a cubit in length, one-quarter oi a cubit in 

 width, and one-sixth of a cubit in thickness, or rather 

 less than these dimensions, to allow for the thickness 

 of the mortar joints, while a rod of brickwork, which 

 one rod or 22 bricks in length, one rod or 66 bricks in 

 height, and three bricks in thickness. The perch or 

 rod of brickwork contains 4356 bricks. 



The English sea mile is exactly the same as the 

 geographical mile of the Babylonian sjstem, and its 

 tenth part, the cable length, is identical with the 

 stadium. In these measures there has been no change, 

 and the only difference is that the cable length is 405 

 English cubits, whereas the stadium was 400 original 

 cubits. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The next combined examination for 

 entrance scholarships and exhibitions, at Pembroke, 

 Gonville and Caius, Jesus, Christ's, St. John's, and 

 Emmanuel Colleges, will be held on Tuesday, Decem- 

 ber 5, and following days. Mathematics and natural 

 sciences will be subjects of examination at all the 

 above-mentioned colleges. Most of the colleges allow 

 candidates who intend to study mechanical science to 

 compete for scholarships and exhibitions by taking the 

 papers set in mathematics and natural sciences. A 

 candidate for a scholarship or exhibition must not be 

 more than nineteen years of age on October i, 19 16. 

 Forms of application for admission to the exainina- 

 tion at the respective colleges may be obtained from 

 the masters of the several colleges. 



Mr. S. W. Cole, of Trinity College, has been ap- 

 pointed University lecturer in medical chemistry, and 

 Mr. C. S. Gibson, of Sidney Sussex College, has been 

 appointed assistant to the professor of chemistry ; both 

 appointments are for five years. 



The Smith's prizes are awarded to H. M. Garner, 

 St. John's College, for two papers on orbital oscilla- 

 tions about the equilateral triangular configuration in 

 the problem of three bodies, and to G. P. Thomson, 

 Corpus Christi College, for four papers on aeroplane 

 problems. A Rayleigh prize is awarded to W. M. 

 Smart, Trinity College, for an essay on the libration 

 of the Trojan planets. 



The General Board of Studies does not propose to 

 appoint a lecturer in animal embryology to succeed the 

 late Dr. R. Assheton, and advises that the balance of 

 the benefaction to the lectureship should be used for 

 the completion and publication of the embryologirnl 

 work upon which Dr. .\ssheton was engaged. 



