388 SOME THOUGHTS ON 



cross-like division of the acre into quarters, the sacred symbol 

 replacing the cardo and decumanus of the Romans, and the 

 name being transferred from the dividing figure to the divisions 

 it produced. K. O. Miiller's idea -that mensuration was a sort of 

 degeneration from the augurial laying out a space, seems to 

 invert the natural order of ideas. I should be much more in- 

 clined to think that the religious ideas which in early times 

 associated themselves with the transition from a pastoral life to 

 tillage and individuated property in land, were earlier than any 

 formal system of divination. The curious story how Attus 

 Marius found the largest bunch of grapes in a vineyard by 

 repeated subdivisions of the space and repeated taking auguries 

 so as to ascertain the row in which it was to be found, illustrates 

 the connexion between the two things. All this is by the way. 

 Another incidental remark is, that the reductionknown as cul- 

 tellatio does not appear to be rightly understood. At least if 

 I remember what is said on the subject, it is made to depend 

 on the fact that if corn grows on a hill-side, the horizontal 

 distance between the straws ought not to be greater than if 

 they grew on level ground, and that therefore to distribute 

 land equitably you must conceive it projected on a level sur- 

 face, but a variety of other considerations ought to be taken 

 in, and this reason has much the appearance of being invented 

 to give a favourable colour to a practice, the real motive to 

 which was that without it it would have been impossible to 

 keep the boundary lines straight. A hill in the middle of a 

 level plane would set every line wrong on one or the other 

 side of it ; on the side, namely, towards which the survey ad- 

 vanced. 



11. It is well known that in Gaul the old native measure, 

 the league, is never supplanted by the mile, and that a league 

 equivalent to a mile and a half occurs in the Itineraries. Com- 

 paring this with the modern French leagues it would seem to 

 have been a half league introduced by the Romans, in order that 

 the intervals marked by the league stones might differ less from 

 those to which they were accustomed. I am inclined to this 

 view, because the short league would obviously be 5000 cubits. 

 Now although t here is a reason why 5000 feet should be the 

 linear unit, as 5 feet make a pace, there is no reason of the same 



