Men and Measures
MEN AND MEASURES
A HISTORY OF
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
ANCIENT AND MODERN
EDWARD NICHOLSON, F.I.C., F.C.S.
SURGEON LIEUT.-COLONEL ARMY MEDICAL DEPARTMENT
AUTHOR OF ‘A MANUAL OF INDIAN OPHIOLOGY’
‘THE STORY OF OUR WEIGHTS AND MEASURES’ ‘FLOURETO DE PROUVÈNÇO’ ETC.
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1912
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is the development of a short story of the Imperial System of Weights and Measures published eleven years ago, but withdrawn when this fuller work took shape.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.
Edward Nicholson
MEN AND MEASURES
ERRATA.
PREFACE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. The Egyptian Common, or Olympic Cubit
5. The Black Cubit (Ninth Century)
1. The Alexandrian Talent
2. The Lesser Alexandrian or Ptolemaïc Talent
3. The Greek-Asiatic Talent
4. Roman Weights and Measures of Capacity
5. The Olympic Talent
6. Greek Coin-weights
7. The Arabic Talent
1. The English Foot
2. The Rhineland Foot
3. The Pán of Marseilles
1. The Yard, the Foot, the Inch
2. Standards of the Linear Measures
3. The Hand
4. The Ell
5. The Rod, Furlong, Mile, and League
1. Introduction
2. Evolution of Geometric Land-measures
3. English Land-measures
4. Feudal Land-Measures
5. Terms used in Land-measures
6. The Yard and the Verge
7. How the Rod came to be 5-1/2 Yards
8. How the Acre came to be 160 Rods
9. Customs of Lancaster
10. Seed-measures of Land
I. The Story of Averdepois
2. The Imperial Pound
3. Scientific and Medicinal Divisions of the Pound
4. The Long Hundredweight
5. Wool and Lead Weight
6. Trade-units of Weight
I. The Old Wine Measures
2. The Ale-gallon
3. Corn Measure
4. The Quarter and the Chaldron
5. Coal Measure
6. The Imperial Gallon
7. Medicinal Fluid Measures
1. The Saxon or Tower Pound
2. The Troy Pound
3. The Pride and Fall of Troy
1. Scotland
2. Ireland
3. Wales
1. The Channel Islands
2. South Africa (Cape Colony)
3. India
4. Burma and the Straits
5. Canada and Mauritius
1. English Money
2. Guernsey Currency
3. Indian Money
4. Decimal Currency
1. Measures of Heat
2. Measures of Density
1. The Foot-Ells
2. The Span-Ells
I. The Teutonic Countries
2. The Latin Countries
3. Russia and the East
4. The Hashími Cubit
5. The Halebi Pík or Arshīn
1. Teutonic Systems of Weight
2. East-European Systems of Weight
3. The Mediterranean Systems of Weight
1. The Teutonic System
2. The Mediterranean System
3. Hebrew Weights and Measures of Capacity
1. General Remarks
2. The Nail and the Clove; the Inch and the Ounce
3. The Carat and the Grain
4. The Tun and the Fother
1. The Southern System
2. The Northern System
1. General View of the Imperial System
2. The Propaganda of the Metric System
3. The Reform of the Metric System
Envoi
INDEX
