Who invented the STATUTE mile?

[Affangu]

Well?

Best I've heard so far is 100 lengths of a centurions sword, but I'm sure the smarty-pants in here can do better than that!

Cheers,

Affangu

[Bleater]

A moments thought reveals that the swords in question would have to be over 50 foot long, which would be a handful even though these guys were pretty tough. ON the Roman theme though I think it had something to do with the Roman armies marching habits. It does not have a geographical basis like the Nautical mile or Kilometre

[Captain Fury]

A thousand paces of a roman soldier.

[HugMonster]

I was always taught that, originally, a mile was the Roman legions' thousand paces - hence the name! (mile= a thousand, hence the M for a thousand in Roman numerals)

This, naturally, resulted in a Roman mile being rather less than 1,760 yards. So, the next question, of course, is how did it get from the Roman mile to the statute mile? Can I phone a friend please?

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Breeding Per Dementia Unto Something Jolly Big, Toodle-pip

[Pdub]

Apparantly the Roman army had chaps specially trained to pace out distances exactly, which enabled one of those famous Roman chaps to work out the diameter of the Earth, by comparing angles cast by sticks at local noon.

Clever chaps eh, apparantly the end result was only about 1000 miles out, which cosidering the baseline they had to work and the equipment is not a bad result.

No help on the Statute mile thing though

[Code Blue]

It originated from the Roman mille passus, or "thousand paces," which measured 5,000 Roman feet.

About the year 1500 the "old London" mile was defined as eight furlongs. At the time, the furlong, measured by a larger northern (German) foot, was 625 feet, and thus the mile equaled 5,000 feet. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the mile gained an additional 280 feet--to 5,280--under a statute of 1593 that confirmed the use of a shorter foot that made the length of the furlong 660 feet.


Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the earth by the method you described. He paid someone to measure the distance from Alexandria to Aswan. He had been staring down a well there - that fascination with holes in the ground again - and noticed the shadow thing.


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[Icarus]

Code Blue - you forgot to add ...

Elsewhere in the British Isles, longer miles were used, including the Irish mile of 6,720 feet and the Scottish mile of 5,940 feet.

A nautical mile is the length on the Earth's surface of one minute of arc, or, by international definition, 1,852 m (6,076.12 feet; 1.1508 statute miles). The measure remains in universal use in both marine and air transportation. The knot is one nautical mile per hour.

Thanks to Britannica.com !!

[Cyclic Hotline]

A mile was the distance of a thousand double paces.

ETYMOLOGY: Middle English, from Old English ml, from Latin mlia (passuum), a thousand (double paces), a Roman mile pl. of mlle, thousand.

By using the following extremely high-tech scientific method, it can be calculated precisely!
1 Statute mile = 8 furlongs
1 Furlong = 10 Chains
1 Chain = 22 Yards
Hence 22x10x8 = 1760 Yards

Now all we need to know is the origin of the Yard!

The basic unit of English length is the yard, which was originally taken as the distance between Henry I's (1068-1135) nose and the tip of his outstretched arm.

[Bleater]

One thousand double paces makes sense, bit less than a metre per pace. It would not be 1000 paces as they were pretty well laden with gear and 5 foot or 1.75 metres per pace seems a bit far, but half that seems fair. The nautical mile changes by a few feet as it is a minute of arc and the earth is not round, so there is a difference between the polar and equatorial measurements for it. The metre of course is 1/10 000 of the distance between the pole and equater, and they sorted that out way back.

[Code Blue]

Icarus:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" size="2">Thanks to Britannica.com !!</font>

Can make one seem really intelligent this cutting & pasting

..Got it from OCB in JB

Research = plagiarism from more than one source.

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edited for customary appalling typing

[This message has been edited by Code Blue (edited 30 January 2001).]

[BEagle]

But you'm be forgettin' the 'country mile', you'm bein! 'Eee be quoit a few yards, 'ee be!! But we'm invented decimal units, 'cos 10 chains be 1 furlong, and 1 acre be 1 furlong by 1 chain or 10 square chains!! Oh arr...

..an' 'twas old St Atute who decided that 8 furlongs were quite enough fer 1 mile!!

[BOING]

Hey BEagle, No fair using a country mile because everybody, at least if they ever asked a local how far it was to the nearest pub, knows that the country mile is a variable.


Which way do you want to get to the pub. The short way or the pretty way?

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[BEagle]

ARRR - and all rivers be no deeper than halfway up a duck!!

[Web-Footed Flyer]

Statute Mile: The Statue you can see from
a mile away.
Statute Mile: The italian fellow asking his
friend Mile if its him out
there.



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Trop haut, trop bas, trop tard!!!

[ORAC]

Imperial Units of Length:
(1 foot = 0.3048m(E))

UK Statute League = 1
UK Statute Mile = Land = 3
Pole = Perch = Rod = 960
Yard = 5280
Cubit = 10,560
Foot = 15,840
Span = 21,120
Hand = 47,520
Palm = 63,360
Inch = 190,080
UK Line = 2,280,960

Other UK units of length are:

Skein = 360 feet
Bolt = 120 feet
Shackle = 90 feet
Rope = 20 feet
Ell = 45 inches
Nail = 9 inches
Span = 9 inches * see above
Barleycorn = 1/3 inch
Calibre = 0.01 inch
Mil = 0.001 inch

UK Nautical Measures are:

Nautical League = 1
Nautical Mile = 3
Nautical Cable = 30
Nautical Chain = 1216
Fathom = 3040
Yard = 6080
Foot = 18,240
Inch = 218,880

UK Surveyors' Measures:

(All now obsolete except Furlong in horse racing)

Statute Mile = 1
Furlong = 8
Gunter's Chain = 80
Rod = 320
Yard = 1760
Foot = 5280
Gunter's Link = 8000

And nothing to do with length, but I like the names, the following are the UK Imperial units of Liquid and dry measure.

Liquid:

Wey = 1
Chaldron = 10/9
Bag = 40/3
Bucket = 80
Gallon = 320
Pottle = 640
Quart = 1280
Pint = 2560
Gill = 10,240
Fluid Ounce = 51,200
Fluid Dram = 409,600
Minim = 24,576,000

Dry:

Wey = 1
Chaldron = 10/9
Sack = 40/3
Bushel = 40
Bucket = 80
Peck = 160
Gallon = 320
Quart = 1280
Pint = 2560

Other UK capacity units are:

Last = 640 Gallons* (*=UK)
Butt = 108
Puncheon = 70
Seam = Quarter = 64
Hogshead = 63
Coomb = 32
Kilderkin = 18
Strike = 16
Firkin = 9
Roquille = Noggin = Quarten = 1 Gill (UK)
Drop = 1 Minim (UK)

Obsolete Measures:

UK Beer, Wine & Spirits:

Octave (Whisky) = 16 Gallons (approx)
Quarter = 17-30
Aum (Hock) = 30-32
Hogshead = 44-60
Hogshead (Madeira) = 45-48
Hogshead (Brandy) = 56-61
Puncheon = 70-120
Pipe = 90-120
Butt = 108-117
Tonneau (Tun) = 190-200
Stuck = 260-265

Beer only:

Tun = 1
Butt = 2
Puncheon = 3
Hogshead = 4
Barrel = 6
Firkin = 24
Pin = 48
Gallon = 216

Wine:

French Name // Reputed Quarts //UK Gallons
English Name (Bottles)

Nabuchodonosor // 20 // 10/3
Nabuchadnezzar

Balthasar // 16 // 8/3
Belshazzar

Salmanazar // 12 // 2
Salmarazd

Mathusalem // 9 // 3/2
Methuselah

Rehoboam // 6 // 1
Rehoboam

Jeroboam // 4 // 2/3
Jeroboam

Magnum // 2 // 1/3
Magnum

Bouteille Champenoise //1 // 1/6
Reputed Quart



[This message has been edited by ORAC (edited 04 February 2001).]

[Bleater]

Thanks for that. I now know what a Firkin is!!. Many Pubs use the word and I thought maybe it was a version of the other 4 letter word starting with F. But no it is a volume of beer. What a great source of useless information this thread is

[Genghis the Engineer]

The Roman mile was, however somewhat shorter at (in todays money) 1472 metres....

1 Millarium (mile) =
125 / 32 Actus (chains) =
500 Decempa (perch) =
1000 Passus (double pace) =
2000 Gradus (single pace) =
10000 / 3 Cubitus (cubits) =
4000 Palmipes =
5000 Pes (feet) =
20000 Palmus (hands) =
60000 Uncia (inches) =
80000 Digitus (fingers).

Which says a lot about "what the Romans have done for us".

G