Miscellaneous Historical Data

[Cancer]

I expect that everyone now and then stumbles over some random historical information that has no obvious real use, but could be handy in a game-world situation (and most often in a fantasy world, though pulp worlds can have the same sort of thing) for making "flavor". The troy-versus-avoidupois ounces thing in the Gold!!!! thread is one such case for me.

Here's a thread for random historical data.

Contribution: Old-style miles

From The Building Foreman's Pocket Book and Ready Reference,
by H. G. Richey, 1st ed. 1909 (New York: John Wiley & Sons)
p.805, in a section titled "Mensuration Tables"

[Verbatim from the book; there's no attribution or explanation in the original text. I think "Legal Le'g'e" is the "French League" used in, e.g., Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, but I am not certain.]

Number of English or United States Yards in Miles of Different Nations
Arabian 2148
Bohemian 10187
Brebant 6082
Burgundy 6183
Chinese (Hls) 682
Dutch (Ure) 6395
Danish 8244
English (U.S.) 1760
English (geographical) 2025
Flemish 6869
German (geographical) 8100
Hamburg 8244
Hanover 11559
Hesse 10547
Hungarian 9113
French (art leagues) 4860
French (marine) 6075
Legal Le'g'e (2000 toises) 4263
Irish 3338
Italian 2025
Luthenian 9784
Oldenburg 10820
Persian (paisang) 6082
Polish (long) 8101
Polish (short) 6095
Portuguese (leguos) 6760
Prussian 8498
Roman (modern) 2035
Roman (ancient) 1613
Russian (verst) 1167
Saxon 9905
Scotch 1984
Silesian 7083
Spanish (leguas) 4630
Spanish (com) 7416
Swiss 9166
Swedish 11704
Turkey 1821
Tuscan 1808
Vienna (post mile) 8296

[Labrat]

Bueno... may I add that you can go here and have it all black-boxed?

http://www.onlineconversion.com/

A more direct route: http://www.onlineconversion.com/length_all.htm

[Cancer]

Bueno... may I add that you can go here and have it all black-boxed?

http://www.onlineconversion.com/

A more direct route: http://www.onlineconversion.com/length_all.htm

That's a cool site, though I admit my interest was piqued not by the ability to translate various kinds of miles into each other, but by the sheer variability of measures in use at some point in time, and how all those different units came about. I assume my 1909 reference is citing mostly stuff in use probably in the late 19th Century, maybe just before the unification of Germany in 1871.

Also, there's the variation in the numbers themselves. There's several "miles" at just over 2000 yards ... these probably are all supposed to be nautical miles, that is, the distance equivalent of an angle of one minute of arc on a sphere the size of the Earth. The similar clump at about 6080 yards is probably three nautical miles. (The parenthetical comments "geographial" and "marine" suggest this to me as well.) Maybe the minor clump at 8100 yards are supposed to be four nautical miles.

Otherwise the distribution in sizes is smooth, and the median "mile" is between 6100 and 6200 yards ... substantially more than three US statute miles! This is purely speculation on my part, but perhaps a more common concept of a "mile" or any raw feeling for a conveniently-grasped chunk of distance is the distance a person walks in some time like an hour. (The English mile is derived from the ancient Roman mile, which was defined to be a fixed number of paces, IIRC. The kilometer is 1000 meters, and a meter was originally defined by modern means, in terms of the Earth: one ten-millionth of the distance from Equator to North Pole.)

And there's also the strange, possibly coincidental observation that the largest/most populous countries tended to have the shortest "mile", and the teeny German principalities had large ones.

[tkdguy]

Another historical link, unrelated to measuring distance, but it seems appropriate for this thread.

http://www.unc.edu/courses/rometech/...eservation.htm

[AndyStaples]

Some weights and measures derived from a pre-WW2 edition of Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia:

Note: the British Imperial bushel dates from the Weights & Measures Act 1824. It is slightly larger than American bushels, which are derived from the 15th century Winchester bushel, and are therefore more authentically medieval. I give both figures.

For those unfamiliar with the British Imperial system, a bushel is a measure of dry volume equivalent to eight gallons. It isn't quite the same in the American system (it's about 9.3 US gallons; unlike the Imperial system the US wet quart and dry quart are different).

The Imperial bushel equates to 36.37 litres, the American one to 35.24 litres. One pound (lb) is 454 grammes in both the US and British Imperial systems.

                        Imperial        American
Item                     bushel          bushel
Cherries[*]              72lb            70lb
Plums[*]                 72lb            70lb
Pears[*]                 72lb            70lb
Beans                     66lb            64lb
Salt                      65lb            63lb
Apples[*]                64lb            62lb
Gooseberries[*]          64lb            62lb
Lentils                   63lb            61lb
Peas                      63lb            61lb
Maize                     60lb            58lb
Wheat                     60lb            58lb
Onions                    57lb            55lb
Currants                  56lb            54lb
Potatoes                  56lb            54lb
Barley                    55lb            53lb
Rye                       54lb            52lb
Raspberries[*]           48lb            47lb
Swedes                    45lb            44lb
Turnips                   45lb            44lb
Carrots                   40lb            39lb
Parsnips                  40lb            39lb
Oats                      40lb            39lb
Green peas                32lb            31lb

[*] The Children's Encyclopaedia gives these weights in pecks (1/4 bushel). There is sometimes a discrepancy between weights given in pecks and weights given in bushels - it notes potatoes as 56lb/bushel and 14lb/peck, which is fine, but turnips as 12lb/peck and 45lb/bushel. Obviously some rounding off has been done somewhere, so where an option is given (potatoes, onions and turnips), I've favoured the weight per bushel.

The Children's Encyclopaedia is chock full of bits of information useless to all but obsessive roleplayers. So if you're an obsessive roleplayer, read on...

Strength of Ice
1.5 inches thick will support a man
4 inches will support a horseman
10 inches will support a crowd
18 inches will support a railway train

Weight of timber (lb/cubic foot)
(note: whether this is seasoned or unseasoned weight is not specified.)

Alder                   33
Ash                     46
Beech                   46
Birch                   40
Horse Chestnut          35
Spanish Chestnut        41
English Elm             43
Silver Fir              30
Hazel                   39
Hornbeam                45
Larch                   38
Lime                    28
Maple                   42
Oak                     53
Scots Pine              32
Poplar                  30
Norway Spruce           30
Sycamore                41
Willow                  33

Hay & Straw Weight
36lb of straw is one truss
56lb of old hay is one truss
60lb of new hay is one truss
36 trusses is one load

Wool weight
7lb is one clove
14lb is one stone
182lb is one wey
364lb is one sack
4386lb is one last

20lb is one score
12 score is one pack

Velocity of water
3 ft/sec will move fine clay
6 ft/sec will move fine sand
8 ft/sec will move coarse sand
12 ft/sec will move gravel as large as one inch diameter
36 ft/sec will move stones as large as hens' eggs