| 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.