260 
Proceeamgs of the Poyal Society 
Eoger Bacon’s distances in Palestine (1253), also quoted by De 
Morgan, give by fifteen examples, a leuca equal to 2 miles of 1230 
± ^0,'^ plus about 7 per cent, for windings, = 1320 ± 60. Neither 
this nor the previous statement are worth much, as they depend on 
the estimates of a few foreigners in a strange country, and not on 
the well-known reckoning of places where the writers and all their 
acquaintance had always lived, as in England. 
We now come to what is the oldest authority, and also one of 
the most complete. This is the vellum map of England, Wales, 
and Scotland, in the Bodleian Library, which has the roads and 
distances marked on it throughout England and Wales. This map 
is attributed to the thirteenth century, and is by far the finest map 
known for such an early period. It is written in red with brown 
lines, and with the sea coloured green ; and it is in very fair con- 
dition. It w^as published in copper-plate facsimile by Basine, with 
a partial description by Gough (to whom it belonged) in British 
Topography^ i. 76 f (1780). It has also been published in coloured 
facsimile, with a key-plate of the names printed, in National Monu- 
ments of Scotland, part iii., edited by C. Innes. Basine omitted 
things altogether wLen he could not easily read them, and his 
renderings often differ from Gough’s aceount. Generally his map 
has a better reading than Gough’s text ; but they both have many 
errors. I Gough continually omitted the numerals, even when 
Basine read them rightly; and he made curious mistakes in the 
places. § Of course, no attempt was made to utilise the distance in 
such a manner of treatment. The facsimile by C. Innes is a fine 
piece of work, and apparently very correct ; but the names are 
often omitted from the key-plate if hard to read ; no attempt is 
made to supply lost names, by considering the positions of places ; 
and the words have been merely read, as well as might be, without 
a reference to a modern map to check the reading. || The main 
* There is a manifest mistake in the place names ; they should read Joppa 
to Caesarea, Caesarea to Aco, &c. 
t The map in the Brit. Mus. copy is wrongly bound in at vol. ii. p. 76. 
t For errors in common, see Colebrook to Maidenhead, x. in Gough and 
Basine, but vii. in Innes, which is the true reading by the distance ; Whitby 
to Guisborough, xii. Basine, xiii. Gough, but xvii. Innes, the true reading. 
§ T.g., applying ‘‘ Burgh ” to Carlisle, while it belongs to a separate town 
on the map. 
11 Thus there is the curious transcription of Coxton for Tuxford, of Lenning 
