UNITS OF LENGTH AND THEIR RELATION TO AREAS IN CADASTRAL SURVEYS |
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| Abstract: | AbstractBrought up as we are in the British Empire in a world of difficult weights and measures, we come to regard them as inevitably complex and laborious, and only when we come into direct contact with professional and business men of foreign nations is it brought home to us how pathetically foolishwe are in sticking to systems of mensuration that have not resulted from deliberate thought but have evolved from the vagaries of mensuration in history. At the commencement of our instruction in arithmetic we are informed (to quote Workman's text-book) that “when we put down a list of the number of inches that make a foot, the number of feet that make a yard, and the number of yards that make a mile, we get what is called a Table of Long Measure. Similar tables are needed for other measures. The following tables must be learnt thoroughly by heart. They are all the measures which are really needed, though a great many more are in use and will be mentioned later.” Here follows, without a word of apology, a page of historical antiquities in the shape of our tables, each one a self-contained entity, seemingly priding itself on having no connexion whatever with any other. |
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