Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
[1] The Latin text from the manuscript known as BL Cotton MS Claudius D 2 is translated in Ruffhead's Statutes at Large) as It is ordained that 3 grains of barley dry and round do make an inch, 12 inches make 1 foot, 3 feet make 1 yard, 5 yards and a half make a perch, and 40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make an acre. [2] [3]: 277
It is ordained that 3 grains of barley dry and round do make an inch, 12 inches make 1 foot, 3 feet make 1 yard, 5 yards and a half make a perch, and 40 perches in length and 4 in breadth make an acre. The Liber Horn compilation (1311) includes that statute with slightly different wording and adds: [22]
The informal public imperial measurement standards erected at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London, in the 19th century: 1 British yard, 2 feet, 1 foot, 6 inches, and 3 inches. The inexact monument was designed to permit rods of the correct measure to fit snugly into its pins at an ambient temperature of 62°F (16 2 ⁄ 3 °C).
One acre equals 1 ⁄ 640 (0.0015625) square mile, 4,840 square yards, 43,560 square feet, [2] or about 4,047 square metres (0.4047 hectares) (see below).While all modern variants of the acre contain 4,840 square yards, there are alternative definitions of a yard, so the exact size of an acre depends upon the particular yard on which it is based.
(Furlongs remained the same, but the rod changed from 15 old feet to 16 1 ⁄ 2 new feet. [10]) In 1324 Edward II systematized units of length by defining the inch as 3 barleycorns, the foot as 12 inches, the yard as 3 feet, the perch as 5 1 ⁄ 2 yards, and the acre as an area 4 by 40 perches. [2]
The rod, perch, or pole (sometimes also lug) is a surveyor's tool [1] and unit of length of various historical definitions. In British imperial and US customary units, it is defined as 16 + 1 ⁄ 2 feet, equal to exactly 1 ⁄ 320 of a mile, or 5 + 1 ⁄ 2 yards (a quarter of a surveyor's chain), and is exactly 5.0292 meters.
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
Historically, a wide range of units was used for the same type of quantity. In different contexts length was measured in inches, feet, yards, fathoms, rods, chains, furlongs, miles, nautical miles, stadia, leagues, with conversion factors that were not based on power of ten.