Length
- ell
- The ell (Latin: ulna) was the basic unit of length, equal to 37 inches. The "Barony ell" of 42 inches was used as the basis for land measurement in the Four Towns area near Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire.
- Scottish inch
- As in England. A fraudulent smaller inch of 1⁄42 of an ell is also recorded.
- foot
- 12 inches.
- yard
- 36 inches. Rarely used except with English units, although it appears in an Act of Parliament from 1432: "The king's officer, as is foresaid, shall have a horn, and each one a red wand of three-quarters of a yard at least."
- fall
- 6 ells, or 222 inches. Identical to the Scots rod and raip ("rope").
- Scots mile
- 320 falls (1973⅓ yards), but varied from place to place. Obsolete by the 19th century. The Royal Mile in Edinburgh is longer than an English mile (1760 yards) but roughly the length of a Scots mile.
Read more about this topic: Scottish Weights And Measures
Famous quotes containing the word length:
“The grace of novelty and the length of habit, though so very opposite to one another, yet agree in this, that they both alike keep us from discovering the faults of our friends.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“No doubt, the short distance to which you can see in the woods, and the general twilight, would at length react on the inhabitants, and make them savages. The lakes also reveal the mountains, and give ample scope and range to our thought.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What though the traveler tell us of the ruins of Egypt, are we so sick or idle that we must sacrifice our America and today to some man’s ill-remembered and indolent story? Carnac and Luxor are but names, or if their skeletons remain, still more desert sand and at length a wave of the Mediterranean Sea are needed to wash away the filth that attaches to their grandeur. Carnac! Carnac! here is Carnac for me. I behold the columns of a larger
and purer temple.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)