Taking three representative German feet, and evolving from them their cubic measure, we have:
Foot. Cubic foot. Gallons. × 1·25 (_a_) Amsterdam 11·146 in. 1384·6 c.in. = (4·94) = 6·15 (_b_) Hamburg 11·241 „ 1420 „ = (5·12) = 6·4 (_c_) Rhineland 12·356 „ 1886 „ = 6·78 = 8·5
(_a_) In Holland there seems to be no measure of capacity corresponding to the cubic foot, but this, increased in w.w. ratio, gives the Schepel = 6·12 gallons, the Skipple of New England.
(_b_) In Hamburg the cubic-foot measure is also absent, but the w.w. increased measure appears as the Eimer = 6·375 gallons, now used for wine, and this measure, again increased, appears as the Anker = 7·97 gallons, both being now fluid measures.
In Bremen and Lubeck, the Eimer = 6·4 gallons, and the Anker = 8 gallons, the one of 4 and the other of 5 viertels, are both wine-measures; while the corn-measure, the Scheffel, = 7·6 gallons, is very nearly the old English corn-bushel.
(_c_) Prussia and Hanover both had the Rhineland foot, but Prussia, while recognising the cubic foot of water as 66 lb. weight, Cologne standard, had no corresponding measure of capacity. In Hanover and in Brunswick the Rhineland cubic foot of water, = 6·78 gallons, was represented, not by a wine-measure, but by a corn-measure, the Himt = 6·852 gallons. And the increased measure, 6·85 × 1·25 = 8·56 gallons, which should properly have been the corn-bushel, appears in Hanover as the Anker, a second wine-measure.
And yet a wine-measure corresponding to the Rhineland cubic foot did exist, in the Viertel = 1·713 gallons, exactly one-fourth of the capacity of the Himt. Five viertels make an Anker, which shows that the Himt, presumably at first a wine-measure of 4 viertels or quarters, was increased in water-wheat ratio to the Anker of 5 viertels. But their original positions were reversed: the Himt became a corn-measure and the Anker a wine-measure.
The original wine-measure of 4 viertels, now the Himt corn-measure (represented in Scotland by the Firlot), is important in this story.
The existence of the Himt supports my hypothesis of the origin of the Rhineland foot. The side of a Himt of quadrantal, or exactly cubical, shape measures 12·385 inches, not 3/100 of an inch above the 12·356 inches of the Rhineland standard foot.