It gave rise to the Legger, of 80 velts. This passed to English trade as
the Leaguer, but failed to establish itself, being soon only known as a
long cask of about 150 wine-gallons used for the lower tier of
water-casks in ships. Above the ‘leaguers’ came the ‘riders.’
The Velt and the Leggar are still used in colonies now or formerly
Dutch. The Leggar in Java = 127·34 gallons.
The Velt = 1·6 gallons at the Cape & Java (approximately).
„ „ = 1·63 „ „ Mauritius.
„ „ = 1·66 „ „ Ceylon.
( „ „ = 1·67 „ in France, near La Rochelle.)
But the Viertel maintained, even increased, its standard of 1·713
gallons when entering the Marseilles-Paris systems of wine-measures as
the Velte; rising to 1·77 gallons in order to become half of the
Escandau of Marseilles, and taking a place at = 1·76 gallons in the
Paris series of wine-measures (see Chapter XXI). Coming from the North,
it was yet an evolution of the Arabic foot, while the Escandau was 1/8
of the Marseilles Cargo reduced in wheat-water ratio, and this cargo was
the Arabic cubic cubit.
2. THE MEDITERRANEAN SYSTEM
The Moslem conquest of the greater part of the Mediterranean countries,
with the influence of Arab trade and of Moorish civilisation, displaced
the Roman system of weights and measures, already modified by the
influence of Ptolemaïc Egypt, and caused changes even in the weights and
measures of Italy. Not only the North of Africa, but Spain, Provence
(and the other Occitanian lands), the dominions of the three republics
of Venice, Genoa and Arles, with the countries forming the Turkish
Empire, all these took more or less the Arab system of weights and
measures, and this system penetrated deep into Western Europe.
The principal Arab measures which form the basis of the Mediterranean
measures of capacity were:
1. The cubed Persian cubit = 8 Persian cubic feet (the Persian foot
being half the cubit of 25·26 inches). The Persian cubic foot of water
being the Persian or Greek-Asiatic talent, at its calculated value of
72·61 lb., the cubed cubit is 8 × 72·61 = 580·88 lb. = 58·088 gallons.
This was the Arab (and Hebrew) Den = 58·2 gallons, divided into
4 Artaba of 14·55 gallons
each of 4 Wuebe of 3·6375 „
each of 6 Saa of 0·6064 „
The Artaba was thus = 2 cubic feet, and the Saa was the qirát, 1/24 of
the Artaba.
The modern Persian Artaba = 14·47 gallons.
2. The cubed Black cubit of Al-Mamūn = 34·73 gallons.
3. The cubed Black foot of Al-Mamūn = 10·29 gallons, the weight of which
was the Kantar = 102·92 lb.
4. The Ardeb = 4 cubed Black feet; 4 × 10·29 = 41·168 gallons.
The measures derived from these cubed linear measures are as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account