The origin of measures of length is unquestionably to be found in the parts of the human body ; both their usual lengths, roughly speaking, and their names, establish this beyond a doubt. The foot, the digit, the palm, the span, the cubit, &c., are in all languages derived from the same source; nor, in the popular view of measurement, do they materially differ in length : the yard is but a variety of the word rod, and has no intrinsic meaning. It is also unquestionable that in former times, when authentic measures were not so easily to be obtained, the hands, arms, and feet were much more frequently used then they arc at present, when every workman, however humble, is in possession of a measure. George Agricola, presently named, says that in his time (the beginning of the lfith century) the French workmen commonly measured a foot by joining the extremities of the thumbs, clenching the fingers, and keeping the thumbs as widely extended as they could : " vulgo pedem metiuntur opifices manibus in peplos contractis et porrectis pollicibus altrinsecuaque obverels :" nor is this a bad measure of a French foot. At what period the slightly variable measures derived from the living man were first exchanged for a fixed and legal average or other conventional value, whether among the Greeks or Romans, is unknown. All that can be said is, that none of the earlier writers enter otherwise than incidentally upon the question, and that the fixed and legal measures were of early date. Most authors give some little information upon the subject ; even the poets are frequently cited for their allusions. Fixing the end of the ancient period about the middle of the 6th century (simply because the chain II of writers who are cited on aucient weights and measures ends there), and omitting names as well known as Homer or Virgil, Ifesychitis or i Strides, Pliny or Vitruvius, there is direct information on the subject in the works or fragments of Cato, Celsus, Columella, Dioseorides, Galen, Hero, Julius Frontinus, Julius Pollux, Martianue Capella, Idodestinus, Oribasiue, l'ahladius, Paulus, Pomponius, Priscian (who wrote expressly on the subject), Proclus, Rhemnius Fermium (who wrote a poem on the subject, often attributed to Priscian), Scribonius, Boetius, Festus Pompeius, Ulpianus, Volusius Mrecianus, and Varro.
It may be convenient to end tire middle period and commence the modern with the work of Lucas Pretus (1573), as being the earliest of the writers who are frequently cited for success in their attempts to restore the almost forgotten values of the Roman measures. But this middle period may be divided into that which preceded and followed the invention of printing. All that took place in the former part of it is a blank ; we know but the result, namely, the (probably gradual) introduction of measures differing from those of Rome in magnitude, though retaining the same names. Nevertheless the writers, as we have seen in 3Iuat, retainer), besides a uniformity of expression, an intended uniformity of meaning : if they bad not the Roman foot and mile, they thought they had. When the German mile was introduced, which was about four Roman miles, the latter were allied Dalian miles. An abundance of Passages might be cited from writers of different countries about the beginning of the 16th century, when books began to be plentiful, all coinciding in requiring the following explanation, namely, that tire learned had among themselves, or believed they had, a system of measures in terms of which they corn municeted with each other, net recognising nor in any way alluding to the common or vernacular measures. It is our supposition that this system began in ignorance that the national measures really did differ from one another at all, and was continued under the impression that a common system was desirable, attainable, and, by keeping to the Roman measures, attained.
As this point in the history of measures is not alluded to by any metrologist, and as some of its consequences are remarkable, it will bo desirable to state some proofs of our assertion. So far as we can finch, it was hardly thought necessary, oven after the 16th century had com menced, and certainly not before, to mention the scale of mourn es; the Roman system was taken for granted. Roger Bacon, when speak
ing of a foot or a mile, compares statements of Ptolemy, Pliny, and writers of his own time, without a word of suspicion that there could be any difference between the several measures ; though his own state ments from modern travellers []MILE] prove that they had a mile very different in length from that of the Romans. In the Geography* of Laurentinus Corvinus (Basel, 1496), all that he says on measures is in six words, explaining the single addition which had been made to the Roman system : " Italorum quatuor unicum miliare nostrum men sdrant." Lebrixa or Antonius Nebrissensis (' Cosmographim Intro ductio,' Paris, 1533), lays it down that his own foot and his own pace are those of the Romans, he being a man of moderate stature ; and having once arrived at a conclusion respecting the Roman pace, he takes it for granted he has the proper foot of his own time : he adds that he has made some verifications on itinerary distances. This idea of the actual use of the human members was a very common one : George Agricola, whose work, `De Ponderibus et Mensuris,' was much in use, and several times reprinted (Paris, 1533 ; Venice, 1535 ; Basel, 1550, and perhaps oftener), would almost seem to hint, in addition to what we have already cited, that the actual measures of his day, as used among merchants, were taken from the body: the measures of length, he says, are " mei:Ara humani corporis, perticx, arundines, funiculi." This can hardly mean that measures, such as the foot, the cubit, &c., were only originally derived from the human body ; for such an explanation would require us to say that the arundo and the funiculus were names of measures, which was certainly t not the case. The word pertica is ambiguous; it is both a pole and the measure derived from that pole : had it not been from the double meaning of that word, we should have been quite positive of what we now think by far mat probable, namely, that Agricola means to say that people in his time measured by the parts of the body, poles, reeds or canes, and strings. This work of Agricola, though intended to be on the weights and measures of his own time, is in reality wholly occupied by discussions on the Greek and Roman measures. He is the first, he says, who in modern times recovered the distinction between the Greek and Roman measures, which had been entirely lost, or at least never mentioned, by his immediate predecessors. It was not uncommon to illustrate the table of measures by drawings of the human body, with descriptions of the foot, palm, &c., as in the Cosmographia' of Peter Apian, reprinted several times in the first half of the 16th century. No other reference to a standard of length is given ; and the table and drawings are made in such a manner, that nothing but our habit of using other modes of measurement would make any one doubt for a moment that actual reference to the human body is intended. The complete table of the 16th century is as follows :—the breadth (not the length, as is particularly stated) of four barleycorns makes a digit, or finger-breadth ; four digits make a palm (measured across the middle joints of the fingers); four palms are one foot ; a foot and a half is a cubit; ten palms, or two feet and a half, are a step (greasus) ; two steps, or five feet, are a pace (passim) ; ten feet are a perch ; a hundred and twenty-five paces are an Italic stadium ; eight stadia, or a thou sand paces, are an Italic mile ; four Italic miles are a German mile; and five Italic miles are a Swiss mile. It will appear most probable from the preceding statement, that the foot was considerably less even than the ancient Roman foot of English inches. The average human foot certainly has not that length ; the average foot of an adult English man is inches. The table just mentioned, derived, as we shall see, from the Romans in most of its parts, is founded upon a notion which is very near the truth in a well-proportioned man, namely, that the breadth of the palm is the 24th part of the height; the length of the foot, the sixth ; and the length of the cubit, or from the elbow to the ends of the extended fingers, the fourth.