Page 3

An Overview
EVOLUTION OF
ARCHAIC MEASUREMENT

   Many years ago there was very little trade and measurement was crude and subject to confusion.
The yard was supposed to be half the span from finger-tip
to finger-tip of a King’s outstretched arms.
And the pound was the "weight of 7,000 grains of
barley chosen from the middle ear".
   Rough and inaccurate measurement was good enough
for barter between friends and relatives but trouble arose
when commercial trade began.
Relationships evolving out of haphazard methods of measurement were anything but simple.

   And as merchants adopted a form of measurement that would be met with more acceptance by the general public of that era the outcome resulted in having 2 pints to the quart,
4 quarts to the gallon, 22 yards to a chain,
16 ounces to the pound
(is that ounces of nuts or ounces in a can of juice?)
12 inches to a foot
(a foot isn't anywhere close to a human foot)
3 feet in a yard, 5,280 feet in a mile,
firkens and knogenheads and on and on and on.
   A pound even had five varied weights and meanings used throughout the Middle Ages and in Britain weight was measured as 14 pounds to the "stone".
An outdated and archaic method of measurement seemingly reserved for British colonies in America's past. The irony in this is that after the British were defeated in the United States the American gallon remained the outdated measurement adopted from what was known as the
"Queen Ann's Wine Gallon". 

And still remains somewhat today. 

...to PAGE 4