218 Ancient Linear Measures. 



250-260 Mexican feet : unless, indeed, they may possibly have 

 had for larger measures one and the same standard. But that 

 may require further investigation. For convenience, I here 

 append the length of the inches I have been referring to, along 

 with the English : — 



Mound Inch, N. America, 12 to foot == a finger 



breadth, or 1 digit. Foot = £ cubit (?). 

 Prehistoric N. American Inch, 11 to foot (?). 



Mexican, Peruvian, and N. American Inch, 12 



to foot = Solon's foot, or Roman.* 



English Inch, 12 to foot. 



I have a gorget from Ohio precisely six Mexican inches in 

 length. A number of objects mentioned in Dr. Abbott's 

 "Primitive Industry" appear to give excellent Mexican scale 

 measurements— pp. 144, 374, 383, 381, 373, 352, 330, 71, etc. 

 The notches and distances of holes in gorgets, pendants, etc., will, 

 I believe, often give either mound or Mexican inches. And, in 

 fact, I hope that by means of these three scales or systems of 

 measure for ancient America, when fully worked out, a flood of 

 light may be thrown upon the habits and implements of her 

 ancient peoples, possibly indicating how they may have been 

 related to each other or to the Old World. 



5. China and Japan. — There appear to be several different 

 foot and inch measures in China and Japan. According to Mr. 

 H. Seebohm, the Chinese and Japanese have a foot decimally 

 divided, exactly equal to our English foot. According to 

 Williams, a good authority, the chih = 13^- English inches, but 

 others also == 14*1, 14*62 to 14.81. He elsewhere gives also an 

 inch = 1| x 10 = 14'0 inches English. On an old foot rule 

 (of bamboo) measure in the British Museum I find it so divided ; 

 and on a new Japanese foot measure the inch = 1 J English 

 X 10 =z 15 inches. There can be little doubt, however, that the 

 best and oldest measure in China is the foot = 12 English 

 inches, *305 metre, decimally divided into 10 inches of 1*25 

 English. But what is of considerable interest, as showing that 

 this unit was not recently borrowed direct from Europe, I have 

 found that it must have been a measure employed without 



* The Mexican inch is exactly -^2 of the foot (4 palms) of "300 

 metre as derived from the Egyptian cubit of *525 metre. 



