London:Measures
From Marteau
| 1 foot | = | 1 1/3 span = 3 hands = 4 palms = 12'' [inches] = 120''' [lines] = 0.30479 m. |
| 1 mile | = | 8 furlongs = 80 chains = 1760 yards = 5280 feet = 1609.344 m. |
| 1 league | = | 3 miles = 4.828 km. |
| 1 wine gallon (1706) | = | 4 quarts = 8 pints = 231 cubic inches, i.e. 3.785 liters |
| 1 quarter (dry quantities, 1696) | = | 2 combs = 4 strickes = 8 bushels = 32 pecks = 64 gallons = 128 pottles = 256 quarts = 516 pints = 281.9 dm³ |
| 1 pound [medical] | = | 12 ounces = 240 pennyweight = 373.24 g. [used for noble metals, and medicine] |
Subpage of the Marteau Platform of Research in Economic History
The wine gallon, which some sources relate to the volume occupied by eight medieval merchant pounds of wine, was at one time defined as the volume of a cylinder six inches deep and seven inches in diameter, i.e. 6·3½²·π = 230.90706 in³. It had been redefined during the reign of Queen Anne, in 1706, as 231 in³ exactly (3 × 7 × 11 in³), which is the result of the earlier definition with π approximated to 22⁄7. Although the wine gallon had been used for centuries for import duty purposes there was no legal standard of it in the Exchequer and a smaller gallon (224 in³) was actually in use, so this statute became necessary. It remains the U.S. definition today.
The original ratio between corn and wine gallon is 9¼²:6·3½² = 1369:1176, but 268.8:231 is exactly 64:55 or ca. 13:11. This approximation is still applicable, although the ratio of 1.164 115 646 slightly changed to 1.163 647 186 with current definitions (268.8025:231 = 107521:92400 ~= 1344:1165).
