Ancient Linear Measures. 215 



builders' acre, or larger unit of superficial measure, was equal to 

 If to l T 7 g English acre with square-side of 300 mound feet 

 (30 x 10), equal to 250 English feet, and that the favourite square 

 and circle areas of 20, 27, and 40 (or 41) English acres meant 

 15, 20 and 30 mound acres respectively. 



If the mound-builder's foot of 12 inches (finger breadths?) 

 was equal to 10 English inches, it would follow that most mound 

 measures expressed in English feet (as in Squier and Davis's 

 " Monuments of the Mississippi Valley ") would give for 250 feet, 

 say 300; for 750, 900, for 835, 1,000; for 920, 1,100; for 

 1,000, 1,200 ; for 1,080, 1,300; though it is not impossible that 

 Mexican feet for large measures may have been sometimes also 

 used, in proportion of about 12 to 13 ; when 930 feet would be 

 = 1,000 feet, or side of a favorite square area of 15 mound 

 acres or 20 English acres. 



4. Prehistoric Measures of North America. — Besides many 

 objects found in the mounds of Ohio and Tennessee evidently 

 giving mound-builders' measure, as well as in New Jersey, Massa- 

 chusetts and New Hampshire, I had been much puzzled by 

 measurements, evidently intentional and rather regular in their 

 discordance, showing reference to some other scale of linear meas- 

 ure, and giving apparently evidence of a near accordance with the 

 English foot. In trying them with the old Mexican foot and inch 

 scale, I found some excellent accordances ; and it may turn out, 

 remarkable as it may seem and bearing important results, that at 

 the time of the mound-builders, 1,000 to 2 ; 000 years ago proba- 

 bly, there co-existed over large parts of North America at least 

 two distinct sets of linear measures, probably used by different 

 races of people ; and that one of these was no other than the iden- 

 tical one we have shown to exist, probably at a somewhat later 

 period, in Mexico and Peru. There is no space for me to go 

 fully into this subject at the present time ; but in part confirma- 

 tion of it, I must go back to the Cincinnati stone tablet of mea- 

 sure, to which I have already referred. It struck me that the 

 two sets of scales, one at each end of the tablet, might refer to 

 these two scales, and prove to have been intended as a mode of 

 comparison between them ; and that solution of the question 

 appears to be the correct one, after a protracted investigation of 

 that curious and puzzling instrument. 



