CHAPTER XIX
FOREIGN MEASURES OF CAPACITY
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: