Men and Measures

by Edward Nicholson

1. The Teutonic System

Measures of capacity are always either—

(a) based on a certain cubed linear measure;

(b) made to hold a certain weight of water or of corn.

A measure of capacity for wine or other fluids may be increased in water-wheat, or pound-pint, ratio to make a corn-measure.

In England they were originally based on the measure of 1000 ounces of water, which became a cubic foot. Many foreign measures are either a cubic foot, sometimes increased in water-wheat ratio, or a cubed cubit.

In Germany, amid a great diversity of measures, a chaos to anyone who has not the key to the principle of unity underlying variety, apparently aberrant measures often show by their names that, while their value has changed, they were originally of a standard that can be traced. And it will generally be found that they are related to a cubic foot, perhaps increased in water-wheat ratio. Sometimes there is one measure for wine and corn, and sometimes the increased corn-measure may have come to be used for fluids while the corn-measure actually in use has been imported.

Taking three representative German feet, and evolving from them their cubic measure, we have:

	Foot.			Cubic foot.		Gallons.		× 1·25
(a) Amsterdam	11·146	in.		1384·6	c.in.	=	(4·94)	= 6·15
(b) Hamburg	11·241	„		1420	„	=	(5·12)	= 6·4
(c) Rhineland	12·356	„		1886	„	=	6·78	= 8·5

(a) In Holland there seems to be no measure of capacity corresponding to the cubic foot, but this, increased in w.w. ratio, gives the Schepel = 6·12 gallons, the Skipple of New England.

(b) In Hamburg the cubic-foot measure is also absent, but the w.w. increased measure appears as the Eimer = 6·375 gallons, now used for wine, and this measure, again increased, appears as the Anker = 7·97 gallons, both being now fluid measures.

In Bremen and Lubeck, the Eimer = 6·4 gallons, and the Anker = 8 gallons, the one of 4 and the other of 5 viertels, are both wine-measures; while the corn-measure, the Scheffel, = 7·6 gallons, is very nearly the old English corn-bushel.

(c) Prussia and Hanover both had the Rhineland foot, but Prussia, while recognising the cubic foot of water as 66 lb. weight, Cologne standard, had no corresponding measure of capacity. In Hanover and in Brunswick the Rhineland cubic foot of water, = 6·78 gallons, was represented, not by a wine-measure, but by a corn-measure, the Himt = 6·852 gallons. And the increased measure, 6·85 × 1·25 = 8·56 gallons, which should properly have been the corn-bushel, appears in Hanover as the Anker, a second wine-measure.

And yet a wine-measure corresponding to the Rhineland cubic foot did exist, in the Viertel = 1·713 gallons, exactly one-fourth of the capacity of the Himt. Five viertels make an Anker, which shows that the Himt, presumably at first a wine-measure of 4 viertels or quarters, was increased in water-wheat ratio to the Anker of 5 viertels. But their original positions were reversed: the Himt became a corn-measure and the Anker a wine-measure.

The original wine-measure of 4 viertels, now the Himt corn-measure (represented in Scotland by the Firlot), is important in this story.

The existence of the Himt supports my hypothesis of the origin of the Rhineland foot. The side of a Himt of quadrantal, or exactly cubical, shape measures 12·385 inches, not 3/100 of an inch above the 12·356 inches of the Rhineland standard foot.

The Himt is then the Troy talent of 1000 ounces, 2/3 of the Arabic kantar, which was 1500 Troy ounces, in just the same way that the English wine-bushel = a cubic foot, the measure of 1000 old averdepois ounces of water, was 2/3 of the Alexandrian talent of 1500 Egypto-Roman ounces.

The Himt being the Troy talent-measure, 2/3 of the Arabic cubic foot, it should have to the Arabic cubic cubit a proportion 2/3 of the normal proportion 1/3·375 of any cubic foot to its cubic cubit. So the Himt = 6·852 gallons × 3/2 × 3·375 = 34·688 gallons, almost exactly the Arabic cubic cubit, which became the Cargo of Marseilles, or the Setier of Paris. Now this standard of 34·73 gallons or thereabouts is not uncommon in Germany. In Hanover and Hesse-Cassel the Ohm = 34·26 gallons is a wine-measure, in Saxony the Malter = 34·7 gallons is a corn-measure, divided into 12 scheffels. Corresponding to this in England was an ancient measure, the Amber (Hamberboune, Hamberbarrel). In other parts of Germany where the cubic foot is smaller, being derived, as in Hamburg, from a foot = 11·24 inches (or at least corresponding to this foot), the cubic foot there gives a measure = 5·12 gallons, and when increased in w.w. ratio = 6·4 gallons. This latter measure × 5 gives 32 gallons, and this number of gallons, either as an Ohm, wine-measure, or × 8 = 32 bushels as a Malter, or corn-measure, is common throughout Germany. There seems in many places to have been a double standard, the smaller derived from a cubic foot, and the larger derived from the Arabic cubic cubit and somewhat cut down to become a multiple of the smaller measure.

The Viertel, = 1·713 gallons, the quarter of the Himt, is also an important measure, not only as giving the clue to the Troy talent, but also as a very widespread wine-measure.

It passed to France, there becoming the Velte = 1·62 gallons at Bordeaux, 1·76 gallons at Paris, where its introduction into the series of wine-measures broke the regular division of the Muid. At Bordeaux this velte was probably the cause of the English wine-gallon increasing from its original 216 cubic inches (1/8 of the cubic foot, or wine-bushel of 1000 ounces) to 231 cubic inches. At the latter capacity it became just half of the Bordeaux velte.

The shrinkage of the Bordeaux velte to 1·62 gallons may have been the effect of adaptation to an English double wine-gallon, or it may have been from the velte, when passing to Holland, having to adapt itself to the other wine-measures of that country. The Dutch Velt or Welt took a place between the Stoop, = 0·5337 gallons, and the Steekan, of 8 stoopen; and it thus became a measure of 3 stoopen = 1·601 gallon.

It gave rise to the Legger, of 80 velts. This passed to English trade as the Leaguer, but failed to establish itself, being soon only known as a long cask of about 150 wine-gallons used for the lower tier of water-casks in ships. Above the ‘leaguers’ came the ‘riders.’

The Velt and the Leggar are still used in colonies now or formerly Dutch. The Leggar in Java = 127·34 gallons.

The	Velt	= 1·6	gallons	at	the Cape & Java (approximately).
„	„	= 1·63	„	„	Mauritius.
„	„	= 1·66	„	„	Ceylon.
( „	„	= 1·67	„	in	France, near La Rochelle.)

But the Viertel maintained, even increased, its standard of 1·713 gallons when entering the Marseilles-Paris systems of wine-measures as the Velte; rising to 1·77 gallons in order to become half of the Escandau of Marseilles, and taking a place at = 1·76 gallons in the Paris series of wine-measures (see [Chapter XXI]). Coming from the North, it was yet an evolution of the Arabic foot, while the Escandau was 1/8 of the Marseilles Cargo reduced in wheat-water ratio, and this cargo was the Arabic cubic cubit.