George Lendich wrote:

Bob,
Interesting to say the least - why do I not feel fully satisfied ?
However your right, it may all be in the records somewhere!
I will research it.
BTW I've never fully accepted Metric - still work mostly in inches. I can understand those who want simplicity, but for my own point of view everything seems to have evolved in12's - degrees, time etc.

12 is a perfect basis for measurements to be used by normal people without access to calculators, and only a rudimentary knowledge of math.  It is evenly divisible by 2, 3, and 4.  Half a foot, third of a foot, and quarter of a foot...which is about as accurate as you need for most business transactions at a medieval fair.  Regardless of its many benefits, metric is an engineering system that takes more neurons to use.

I found it interesting to see how some measurements evolved i.e a foot was someone's foot ( perhaps the King's) a yard is taken from the shoulder joint to the finger tips - from what I've read etc. etc. I have just found the variation of the gallon annoying from the Aviation point of view - then one starts to wonder WHY?

You are correct on both the foot and the yard.  The inch was derived from one of the king's thumb joints.  Eventually someone cast a chunk of metal, and said we'll use this from now on, 'cause they got tired of having to remeasure the kingdom every time there was an assasination.  In most instances, it was a bureaucrat hidden in the basement of a corner of the castle, and the casting form was made from scrap material laying around . . . which is a hyperbolic way of saying, it was a rather arbitrary process.

George ( down under)

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