Chapter I: Preface

This history is the development of a short story of the Imperial System of Weights and Measures published eleven years ago, but withdrawn when this fuller work took shape. To have made it at all complete would have required a long lifetime of research; to give and discuss every authority, to trace, even to acknowledge, every source of information would have unduly swollen the volume and slackened the interest of the narrative. I offer it with all its shortcomings as an attempt to show the metric instincts of man everywhere and in all time, to trace the origins and evolution of the main national systems, to explain the apparently arbitrary changes which have affected them, to show how the ancient system used by the English-speaking peoples of the world has been able, not only to survive dangerous perturbations in the past, but also to resist the modern revolutionary system which has destroyed so many others less homogeneous, less capable of adaptation to circumstances.

E. N.

_Feb. 1912._

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
GENERAL VIEW OF THE EVOLUTION OF MEASURES 1

CHAPTER II

THE STORY OF THE CUBITS

1. The Egyptian common or Olympic cubit 14
The meridian mile 15
Greek itinerary measures 16
The Roman mile 17
2. The Egyptian royal cubit 18
3. The great Assyrian or Persian cubit 23
4. The Beládi cubit 26
The Bereh or equatorial land-mile 27
5. The Black cubit 28
Comparative lengths of the five ancient cubits 30

CHAPTER III

THE STORY OF THE TALENTS

1. The Alexandrian talent 33
The Medimnos 34
2. The lesser Alexandrian or Ptolemaïc talent 35
3. The Greek-Asiatic talent 36
The Metretes 37
4. Roman weights and measures of capacity 38
The new Roman pound 40
5. The Olympic talent 42
6. Greek coin-weights 43
7. The Arabic talent 44
Measures of capacity derived from Arabic linear measures 47

CHAPTER IV

THE INVOLUTION OF LINEAR MEASURES FROM WEIGHTS
THE ORIGIN OF THE ENGLISH AND OF THE RHINELAND FOOT

1. The English foot 49
2. The Rhineland foot 52
3. The pán of Marseilles 53
4. The filiation of the English foot, of the Rhineland
foot, and of the pán of Marseilles 55

CHAPTER V

ENGLISH LINEAR MEASURES

1. The yard, the foot, the inch 58
2. Standards of the linear measures 59
3. The hand 61
4. The ell 62
5. The rod, furlong, mile, and league 62

CHAPTER VI

LAND-MEASURES

1. Introduction 65
2. Evolution of geometric land-measures 66
3. The story of English land-measures 71
4. Feudal land-measures 75
5. Terms used in old land-measures 77
6. The yard and the verge 82
7. How the rod came to be 5-1/2 yards 84
8. How the acre came to be 160 square rods 87
9. Customs of Lancaster 88
10. Seed-measures of land 90

CHAPTER VII

ENGLISH COMMERCIAL WEIGHTS

1. The story of Averdepois 93
2. The Imperial pound 102
3. Scientific and medicinal divisions of the pound 104
4. The long hundredweight 105
5. Wool and lead weight 109
6. Trade-units of weight 112

CHAPTER VIII

ENGLISH MEASURES OF CAPACITY

1. The old wine-measures 114
2. The ale-gallon 117
3. Corn-measure 118
4. The quarter and the chaldron 120
5. Coal-measure 122
6. The Imperial gallon 123
7. Medicinal fluid-measures 126

CHAPTER IX

THE MINT-POUNDS

1. The Saxon or Tower pound 127
2. The Troy pound 129
How the averdepois pound was of 7000 grains 133
3. The pride and fall of Troy 136
The assize of bread 138
The disappearance of the Troy pound 139

CHAPTER X

THE CUBIC FOOT AND THE TON REGISTER

Concordance of capacity, weight, and measurement 145
Volume and weight of water at different temperatures 146

CHAPTER XI

SCOTS, IRISH, AND WELSH MEASURES AND WEIGHTS

1. Scotland 147
2. Ireland 155
3. Wales 156

CHAPTER XII

MEASURES AND WEIGHTS OF SOME BRITISH DOMINIONS

1. The Channel islands 157
2. South Africa (Cape Colony) 166
3. India 167
4. Burma and the Straits 172
5. Canada and Mauritius 173

CHAPTER XIII

MEASURES OF VALUE

1. English money 174
2. Guernsey currency 183
3. Indian money 184
4. Decimal currency 188

CHAPTER XIV

MEASURES OF TIME

The lunar year 194
The compass-card 195

CHAPTER XV

MEASURES OF HEAT AND OF DENSITY 197

Compound industrial units 201

CHAPTER XVI

THE ELLS 202

CHAPTER XVII

FOREIGN LINEAR MEASURES

1. Teutonic countries 206
2. Latin countries 208
3. Russia and the East 212
4. The Hashimi cubit 214
5. The Halebi pík or arshīn 215

CHAPTER XVIII

FOREIGN WEIGHTS

1. Teutonic systems 218
2. East-European systems 219
3. Mediterranean systems 220
Summary 224
Original weights of the dirhems 226

CHAPTER XIX

FOREIGN MEASURES OF CAPACITY

1. The Teutonic system 227
2. The Mediterranean system 232
3. Hebrew weights and measures of capacity 237

CHAPTER XX

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MEANING IN THE NAMES OF
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

1. General remarks 240
2. The nail and the clove; the inch and the ounce 242
3. The carat and the grain 245
4. The tun and the fother 252

CHAPTER XXI

THE OLD MEASURES AND WEIGHTS OF FRANCE

1. The Southern system 253
2. The Northern system 259

CHAPTER XXII

THE METRIC SYSTEM 271

CHAPTER XXIII

HOW THE METRIC SYSTEM WORKS IN FRANCE 284

CHAPTER XXIV

THE CONFLICT OF THE IMPERIAL AND METRIC SYSTEMS

1. General view of the Imperial system 295
2. The propaganda of the Metric system 300
3. The reform of the Metric system 306

CONVERSION-TABLES OF METRIC AND IMPERIAL MEASURES 310

INDEX 311

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MEN AND MEASURES