MEN AND MEASURES
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MEN AND MEASURES
A HISTORY OF
WEIGHTS AND MEASURES
ANCIENT AND MODERN
BY
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
[All rights reserved]
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ERRATA.
_Page_ 36 _Line_ 21 _For_ “×1000” _Read_ “×7000.”
„ 136 „ 21 „ “grams” „ “grains.”
„ 148 „ 27 „ “7925” „ “7625.”
„ 154 _Lines_ 21, 22, 23 _delete_ “to.”
„ 155 _Line_ 4 _For_ “feet” _Read_ “ells.”
„ 195 „ 15 „ “17” „ “25.”
„ 198 „ 19 „ “double” „ “halve.”
„ 263 „ 13 „ “perches” „ “toises.”
„ 295 „ 16 „ “apposes” „ “opposes.”
„ 306 _Last line_ „ “our” „ “yours.”
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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of Weights and Measures published eleven years ago, but withdrawn when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